The 2021-22 Golden State Warriors season-in-review: Kevon Looney
Looney's biggest role to date in the regular season, his improvements within the Warriors' motion offense, his journey viewed in the context of his health struggles, his historic playoffs, and more.
Kevon Looney’s grade: A-
Kevon Looney’s regular season:
During the lowest moments of Kevon Looney’s 2019-20 season, people close to him asked him earnestly if he thought his career might be over. “That never really crossed my mind,” Looney told NBCS Bay Area’s Monte Poole, “It’s kind of crazy that when I talked to people, even some of my closest friends, they were saying, ‘I thought it was over,’ or ‘I thought you wouldn’t be able to get through that.’” Looney’s optimism aside, let’s consider the context that underpinned the concern of his friends and family: even before his brutally ineffective COVID-interrupted season, he had undergone two hip surgeries before and during his rookie season, he suffered and played through a broken collarbone during the 2019 Finals, and he had dealt with chronic numbness in his wrists, fingers, elbows, and feet for most of his NBA career.
Let’s briefly recap the shitstorm that was Kevon Looney’s 2019-20 season: Looney pulled his hamstring during training camp but the pain and recovery process soon made it clear that this was not a typical injury. Steve Kerr’s concern for Looney was profound; “I was scared for him, way beyond basketball. [...] The scariest thing, when you’re facing a health issue, is when you don’t have an answer.” In 20 games that season, Looney shot 36.7% from the field and never once played more than 20 minutes or played more than 7 games in a row.
On top of the chronic numbness and hamstring issue that wrecked his 2019-20 season, Looney underwent another surgery in May of 2020, this time on an abdominal muscle. That surgery, combined with dramatic changes to his diet, helped Looney play 61 games in the 2020-21 and take back his starting spot after an injury to James Wiseman. During the final 20 games of that season, the Warriors went 15-5 and Looney solidified himself as the organization’s incumbent starting center.
Kevon Looney made it an explicit goal to play 82 games during the 2021-22 season, which happened to be a contract year for him. This was an admirable desire, but when The Athletic’s Anthony Slater made Looney’s goal public in February, I was skeptical that Looney, one of my longtime favorite Warriors, would reach that mark. Could you blame me, considering Looney’s history of brutal and bizarre injuries?
104 games and a championship ring later, Kevon Looney made his goal a reality. The Warriors were exceptionally lucky that Looney did not miss a game but his durability was not a stroke of cosmic luck, but rather, the result of intense dedication and hard work by Looney.
Even early in his career, Kevon Looney had already sacrificed and made more changes to his diet than most humans ever will. After an injury-riddled start to his career, Looney began to cut out various foods to improve his stamina and physical health. Here’s Monte Poole on Looney in October of 2018:
The single most significant factor in Looney’s progress was his devotion to conditioning. Seeing the results noted fitness trainer Amoila Cesar achieved with former Lakers forward Julius Randle, Looney reached out to Cesar in 2017, followed the regimen and came away with a new and far more sculpted physique.
A component of that is Looney developing a newfound dedication to diet, something that had been stressed earlier by veteran teammate Andre Iguodala, the team’s resident health nut.
“I wasn’t in shape my first two years,” Looney said. “I lifted hard, but I didn’t always eat right. I used to eat fast food a lot. I had to cut out fast food, cut back on most all fried foods, especially catfish and hot wings.
“Andre was telling me about this for two years, and I didn’t take it seriously until I had to.”
Looney dived into foods he once avoided. Kale. Spinach. Broccoli. Cauliflower. He rarely reaches for bread and even more rarely allows himself the guilty pleasure of his beloved flaming hot Doritos.
After Looney’s intense case of neuropathy derailed his 2019-20 season, he took a visit to the famed Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, and soon after, instituted even more dramatic changes to his eating habits. Looney’s dietary changes were made to help manage his neuropathic symptoms, but he had also struggled for much of his career with occasional nausea and constipation, sensations that reached a boiling point during that 2019-20 season. The Warriors, with the help of medical experts, determined that Looney’s gut bacteria was the likely root cause of his various issues. From an NBA.com article written about Looney during the playoffs:
That prompted Looney to work with both the Warriors’ training staff and David Allen, a clinical nutritionist based in Woodland Hills, Calif., to learn more about what contributed to his digestive issues. Following numerous tests, Allen concluded that Looney’s gut was “highly compromised.” Allen also discovered that Looney had what he called “bad bacteria,” which inflamed his stomach and reduced his nutrient absorption. The Warriors’ training staff and Allen also agreed that Looney’s gastrointestinal issues worsened his nerve pain.
[....]
Looney stopped consuming various meats, sugar, processed foods, dairy, gluten, nuts and cinnamon out of a belief that those foods contributed to his pain and congestion. Looney became a pescatarian and also frequently drank what Allen called a “cleanse shake,” which has vegan-based protein aimed to lower Looney’s inflammation while strengthening his liver, gallbladder and pancreas. Allen estimated that Looney also takes about 50 different supplements, which the Warriors have tested out six months in advance.
“I’ve never seen any team so disciplined,” Allen said. “They had been working and trying to get Kevon healthy for a while. They were very invested in him.”
[...]
Looney also spent six weeks last summer completing Muay Thai training sessions with Chris Mulanney, a strength and conditioning coach and personal trainer, at a mixed martial arts gym. Looney had already dabbed in jiujitsu training in previous offseasons, both to boost his conditioning, footwork and strength. But he found Muay Thai helpful with improving his hip mobility and balance, in hopes of preventing future injuries.
For four days a week, Looney worked with Mulanney on what he called “a lot of technical work.” The sessions started with Looney completing a series of squats and lunges to improve his range of motion. He then participated in a martial arts workout that focused on mastering various kicking and punching techniques. Mulanney estimated those sessions usually lasted an hour longer than intended because Looney “just wanted to keep going.”
“He was a really hard worker, extremely intelligent and a very fast learner,” Mulanney said. “But the last thing you want is for him to come away with some kind of tweak. That concern was certainly at the forefront of what we were doing.”
In the summer of 2022, the Warriors hired Dejan Milojević, Nikola Jokic’s former coach, to aid the development of James Wiseman and work with the Warriors’ bigs. Given the resources invested into Wiseman, Looney was in the slightly awkward position of being both the incumbent starter and a placeholder at the center position. But as Wiseman’s injury rehab dragged on, he was limited to no-contact work while Looney became Milojvić’s primary pupil.
As was the case in the 2020-21 season, Looney ramped up after a somewhat slow start to the season. It wasn’t until the 11th game of the season that Looney crossed the 20-minute threshold for the first time. That game was also notable for a few other reasons: Andrew Wiggins had two huge dunks at Karl Anthony Towns’ expense — that’s how most people will remember this game — while Looney had double-digit points as well as double-digit rebounds for the first time all season. More importantly, Looney won his matchup with Towns and limited his offensive output:
In the month of November, Looney played 20+ minutes in 7 games and compiled a delightful compilation of defensive highlights against some of the NBA’s elite players. Here are a few examples:
Looney’s ability to defend elite perimeter players on switches is nothing new, at least not to Warriors fans. In the 2018 playoffs, Looney made himself into a rotation fixture with stout perimeter defense, despite moving like a 35-year-old at the ripe age of 21. In the years since Looney’s coming out party against the Houston Rockets, he’s added weight — The Athletic’s Marcus Thompson reported that Looney has put on at least 30 pounds since entering the NBA in 2015 — and he’s lost some mobility and explosiveness as a result. Looney is just 26 years old, but to the naked eye, it doesn’t look like he has much of an athletic ceiling left, which probably explains why some doomers on Warriors Twitter thought he was on a terminal decline.
A Twitter search for the phrase, “Looney can’t finish” yields a bounty of doom and gloom about Looney and yearning for the vertical explosion of James Wiseman. Although Looney’s leaping ability was compromised by the weight he put on to defend big C’s — more on that later — he made marked improvements on offense this past season. Now in his 7th season in the Warriors’ system, Looney showed reflexive playmaking out of dribble handoffs, particularly with Jordan Poole, and was typically excellent at setting off-ball screens to free up Steph Curry. Here are a few examples:
Looney also showed an increased willingness to the ball on the ground (1.0 shots a game following a single dribble in the 2021-22 season compared to 0.5 the previous season) when he got the pass on pick-and-rolls, which led to plays like these:
Unfortunately, Kevon Looney was frequently on the receiving end of doomed passes by Draymond Green, who seemed oblivious to Looney’s ground-bound finishing ability and, for some reason, threw a confusing amount of passes into traffic to Loon. Here are just a few I compiled over the course of the season:
Who to blame for these turnovers was a surprisingly divisive topic on Twitter — plenty railed against Draymond for making such risky passes to someone as vertically compromised as Looney, but I often saw Warriors fans muse that a more athletic center, say, James Wiseman, would actually catch these passes or at least, provide a credible lob threat. But one thing that united Warriors’ Twitter was their appreciation for Kevon Looney’s screens. This particularly brutal knockdown of future Warriors’ enemy, Dillon Brooks, was quite satisfying:
When Draymond Green started missing games for what was initially believed to be a calf problem, Looney was thrust into the most extensive minutes he’s played in his career. In the 30 games that Green missed, Looney averaged 24 minutes a game and grabbed 9.1 rebounds. From January 14 until the February 10 trade deadline, Looney played 20+ minutes in every single game, including 31 and 29-minute performances against the Houston Rockets and Brooklyn Nets. Here’s Looney on his increased minutes:
“I actually feel better than I ever did, [...] In years past, I don’t know if could’ve played a back-to-back, played 20-plus minutes. But now I feel great, feel confident, my body’s been responding pretty well.”
That quote comes from an Anthony Slater article in The Athletic about the Warriors’ decision to not add another center, published on January 24, shortly after a Warriors’ victory against the Utah Jazz that was punctuated by this dagger rebound and putback by Looney:
At that point in time, the Warriors assumed that second-year-center, James Wiseman, would return at some point and be able to soak up some regular season minutes. But even then, Wiseman was not expected to return to the Warriors until at least after the All-Star break and, Slater cautioned, “it’s unwise for the Warriors to count on Wiseman in any meaningful way as a rotation center in the playoffs.”
About a week later after the publication of that Slater article, Warriors’ GM, Bob Myers did a radio appearance and talked a bit about the Warriors’ center position. Here’s an excerpt, transcribed by friend of the Substack, @fakelogic:
"We need them both [(Draymond/Wiseman] if you're talking about what's coming up in the playoffs.....Small has worked. That's a testament to what Looney's done. Last night we put Juan out at the 5. Kuminga has played some 5. Bjelica is banged up. So we're--I don't even want to voice it, but Looney has to stay healthy. He HAS to stay healthy."
The Warriors ran off 7 wins in a row after the publication of Slater’s article about the reliability of Kevon Looney. But the night before the trade deadline, Looney was listed as questionable with a quad contusion and played through it anyway during a blowout loss to the Utah Jazz where Hassan Whiteside grabbed 17 rebounds and pushed Looney around. The very next day, the trade deadline passed with no activity by the Warriors, and they lost again in a physical game against the New York Knicks where Looney looked exhausted and physically unimposing against a bruising Knicks frontcourt.
Reinforcements to the center position never came. James Wiseman had a second setback in his injury rehab in mid-March and was later ruled out for the rest of the season and the Warriors opted against cutting one of their fringe depth pieces for a buyout center or cutting one of their two-way contract players for a big man.
Had Looney suffered an injury that forced him out for any significant period of time, the only “true” big man left was Nemanja Bjelica, who’d spent much of his career in a stretch-4 role. By the time that James Wiseman was ruled out for the season, the other undersized options were a rookie Jonathan Kuminga, a recently injured Draymond Green, and Otto Porter Jr., who did not play on back-to-backs for the Warriors.
It’s hard to understate how lucky the Warriors were that Kevon Looney stayed healthy and didn’t force a brutal re-evaluation of the Warriors’ trade deadline inactivity. After Looney’s rough performance against Hassan Whiteside and the Knicks’ frontcourt, I feared he may have run out of steam. But during the All-Star break, Looney got some much-needed rest and soon after, the Warriors went through a five-game losing streak, followed by a four-game winning streak that included Draymond Green’s return and was stopped in its tracks by an injury to Steph Curry.
The Warriors went into a tailspin after Curry’s injury with 7 losses in their next 8 games. Their lone win came during a load management game for their veterans where Jordan Poole and Jonathan Kuminga led the Warriors to a road victory against the Miami Heat. Looney picked up 16 rebounds in that game and defended the Heat’s star big, Bam Adebayo quite capably:
After that Heat game, Steve Kerr made a dramatic change to the Warriors’ starting lineup and benched Kevon Looney in favor of Jonathan Kuminga in order to bring some spacing and speed to the starting 5. Here’s Kerr on that change:
“We’ve started Draymond and Loon for a long time together. [...] But without Steph, the spacing (problem) is more magnified. Steph sort of negates the lack of spacing, in terms of lineup combinations. Without him, it becomes more prominent and we have a tougher time scoring.”
Looney took the “benching” in stride:
“He’s been talking about lineup changes, mixing and matching things, changing some things around. [...] Kind of knew something might happen. He didn’t say nothing until today. I wasn’t shocked.”
[...]
“It’s not a Warriors season unless a center gets benched at least one time. [...] I’ve seen (Andrew) Bogut handle it, Zaza (Pachulia), David West, JaVale (McGee). We’ve all been there before. You just gotta stay ready. Andre (Iguodala) was an All-Star before he got here and came off the bench. A lot of guys have had to sacrifice. I’m just one of them.”
That starting lineup change lasted just two games, back-to-back losses to the Atlanta Hawks and Washington Wizards where Looney played more minutes than Kuminga. The Warriors lost their next game, another load management night, against the Memphis Grizzlies, and then began to right the ship, starting with an emotional victory/close loss to the Phoenix Suns. You shouldn’t be surprised to know that Kevon Looney started that game against the Suns, as well as the following five games, all Warriors victories.
Kevon Looney averaged only 14 minutes a game in the final 6 games of the regular season, but his return to the starting lineup was not unlike a parent returning home and restoring order after the babysitter was unable to do so. Although he is a young vet, relatively speaking, Looney meant a lot to this Warriors team. Jordan Poole, for example, has talked at length about Looney’s importance to the team and his own growth:
He talks me through everything. He’s been huge to my development. I wouldn’t be here in the position I am right now if it wasn’t for Loon.
[...]
He’s helped me every single step of the way. Just learning as much as I can from him. He’s a veteran. He’s been here so long. He’s been with this team and organization for so long. He knows so much. I’m just thankful.
In his 7th year in the league, Kevon Looney earned a level of gravitas commensurate with the age he looks and moves at. Only five players managed to play all 82 games in the 2021-22 season and no player in the NBA played had more games than Looney by the end of the playoffs. Of all the improbable things that happened during this championship season, Looney’s season may be the most improbable and underappreciated story of all.
Kevon Looney’s statistical profile (career-bests bolded and career-worsts italicized):
82 games played, 21.1 minutes a game, 6.0 points a game, 7.3 rebounds, 2.0 assists, 0.8 turnovers, 0.6 steals, 0.6 blocks, and 2.6 fouls per game.
5.71% FG, 0%, 60% FT, 58.6 TS% (+2.0% league-average TS), 57.1% EFG (+3.9% league-average EFG).
4.4 FGA, 0.0 3PA, 1.5 FTA
BBREF: 128 ORTG, 105 DRTG, +0.7 +/- on/off per 100 poss., 1.3 VORP, 1.87 WS/48, 12.2% USG.
NBA.com: 113.2 ORTG, 107.2 DRTG, +6.0 net rating, 12.0% USG.
+0.1 DIFF in non-garbage time (53rd percentile), 16th percentile usage, 41st percentile PSA, 74th percentile AST%, 94th percentile AST:Usg, 45th percentile TOV% among combos.
-3.70 ORPM, +6.80 DRPM, +3.10 RPM (#62 rank of 557 players).
In the most accomplished season of Kevon Looney’s career, his counting stats are rather unspectacular. Looney logged a career-high in minutes, rebounds, assists, field goal percentage, and shot attempts, but these numbers are still quite modest. Per Basketball Reference’s BPM, Looney had his most impactful season to date while ESPN’s absurd RPM metric ranked him as the 4th-most impactful defender in basketball (???). Your guess is as good as mine.
Cleaning the Glass’s on/off stats have, in my opinion, the most sensible view of Looney. While his on/off differential is only in the 53rd percentile, his on-court net rating of +5.3 ranks in the 81st percentile. This is to say, the Warriors were a pretty damn good team when Looney played and they were still a pretty damn good team when sat because they were only +0.1 points per 100 possessions better with Looney on the court.
What stands out most about Looney’s stats are his rebounding numbers and I’m starting to feel silly for not having included TRB% or any other metrics like that in any of the statistical profiles I’ve written, but I digress. Looney’s 18.8% TRB ranked 9th in the NBA of all qualifying players, sandwiched in between Joel Embiid and Giannis Antetokounmpo, and his 13.5% OREB was 7th in the league, just ahead of Rudy Gobert. Looney actually picked up more offensive rebounds by percentage in his 2018-19 season, but he improved 5.2% and 4.0% percent on his previous career bests in DRB% and TRB% this past season. Looney’s previous career-best, 14.8% TRB would have ranked just #31 in the league and around the bottom tier of centers in the league.
Marcus Thompson of The Athletic wrote an article during the Warriors’ playoff run about Looney’s historical rebounding postseason — much more on that later — and got some choice quotes from Loon and big man coach, Dejan Mlojević. Looney told MTII that “this year I’ve been way more consistent, and really more locked in on it, and that’s been able to make a difference,” while Milojevic provided some excellent quotes on how rebounding can be improved through hard work and technique and noted that Looney had been an excellent pupil. Here’s an excerpt:
Looney has been studying the probabilities based on where each shot is taken. He’s gotten adept at reading how strong the ball was shot, and how soft, and how it might bounce.
“If you look at the trajectory of the ball,” Milojević said, “you can predict and anticipate. Did they shoot it stronger, or weaker, so you can relocate. And, of course, if you hustle, you can do all these things.”
And then there is Looney’s favorite part: banging. Milojević teaches him how to strategically box out, how to initiate contact to keep a would-be rebounder grounded. They discuss angles, moves to get better positioning and how to take advantage of Looney’s 7-foot-4 wingspan.
“For example, if you are in contact with somebody, they can’t jump,” Milojević said. “This is how you can fight the high fliers. … Rebounding is a skill like everything else is in basketball. Most people think it’s effort. … Nothing can be done without effort. But it’s not, like, enough.”
Kevon Looney’s shooting profile:
Restricted area: 68.5% on 251 attempts.
Non-restricted area paint: 39.3% on 61 attempts.
Mid-range: 23.5% on 51 attempts.
Left corner 3: 0% on 0 attempts.
Right corner 3: 0% on 0 attempts.
Above the break 3: 0% on 1 attempt.
Floaters: 20% on 5 attempts.
Layups and finger rolls: 52.2% on 205 attempts.
FGA% per total drives: 64.1%
Assisted by: Steph Curry (54), Jordan Poole (26), Draymond Green (21), Andrew Wiggins (17), Klay Thompson and Otto Porter Jr. (7), Chris Chiozza and Gary Payton II and Juan Toscano Anderson (4), Moses Moody (3), Jonathan Kuminga (2), Andre Iguodala and Damion Lee and Jeff Dowtin and Quinndary Weatherspoon (1).
FGM% assisted: 73.7%
FGM% unassisted: 26.4.6%
The limitations that define Kevon Looney’s offensive output and frustrate certain segments of the Warriors fanbase are evident in his shooting profile. Outside of finishing around the basket, Looney doesn’t really put the ball in the basket at an efficient clip anywhere else on the court. Looney’s restricted area was just a tick below his career bests in 2018-19 and 2017-18 and even more reliant on assists than it was in those seasons, but he finished at a career-best 39.3% in the non-restricted area paint. That’s worth something, I guess, especially as his mid-range shooting completely fell off a cliff.
You’ll note that Looney’s FG% on drives is quite bad — only Chris Chiozza had a lower percentage on drives. I’m not sure what, exactly, happened this past season to Looney’s driving ability. In his previous healthy seasons, Looney always logged a field-goal percentage above 50% on drives. Perhaps the culprit for his reduced efficiency is volume; in his previous healthy seasons (17-18, 18-19, and 20-21), Looney took 27, 22, and 17 field-goal attempts on drives — on twice as many attempts as the season prior, Looney’s efficiency on drives plummeted.
Another playtype where Looney was subpar this past season was in pick-and-rolls. On 0.7 possessions per game, Looney’s 0.95 points-per-possession (PPP) ranked in the 25th percentile and he finished at just a 49% clip, compared to a 92nd percentile 1.39 PPP and 68.8% field-goal percentage the season prior. Go figure.
Looney’s numbers on drives and pick-and-rolls actually bore quite a resemblance to the similarly ground-bound Otto Porter Jr, who finished at a 35.7% clip on drives and 1.00 PPP and 46.7% field-goal percentage as the roll man. Those numbers are as good an excuse as any for me to re-post a relevant meme I made back in November:
Here is Kevon Looney’s shot chart for this past regular season from Positive Residual:
The lineup stats!
We’ll start with Kevon Looney’s 15-most used non-garbage time lineups, courtesy of Cleaning the Glass. I’ve highlighted the positive lineups below in green.
Most of the lineups listed here include Steph Curry or are one of the many starting lineups that Steve Kerr rolled out this past season. You’ll note that some of the negative lineups — Curry/Thompson/Wiggins/Kuminga/Looney or Curry/Moody/Thompson/Wiggins/Looney, for example — are lineups that started games as Kerr tried to navigate Draymond Green’s injury absence. The most exciting of the non-Draymond lineups listed here is Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Looney, which tallied a +53 net rating in 91 possessions together — I’m eager to see that lineup next season.
Lineups without Steph Curry account for three of the five negative or neutral lineups listed here. One of those lineups, Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Green/Looney, started games after Steph Curry’s injury, and while it’s unlikely that Looney ever spends a lot of time without Curry on the floor, as Curry ages and rests more frequently, it would be nice if Looney were more useful in non-Steph minutes.
During the regular season, Kevon Looney played nearly 70% of his minutes with Steph Curry on the court. The Warriors had a +11.4 net rating per Cleaning the Glass in their minutes together, but Looney without Curry had a -7.9 net rating. Looney’s net-rating differential with and without Curry was the third-most dramatic on the Warriors and no other player had a worse net rating without Steph. That’s something to keep an eye on in the future.
15-most used three-man combos (positive ones bolded):
Curry/Wiggins/Looney: +10.7 net rating (114.3 ORTG) in 1046 minutes.
Poole/Wiggins/Looney: +8.6 net rating (114.8 ORTG) in 955 minutes.
Curry/Poole/Looney: +15.5 net rating (117.5 ORTG) in 610 minutes.
Wiggins/Green/Looney: +4.7 net rating (109.4 ORTG) in 553 minutes.
Poole/Green/Looney: +2.8 net rating (109.4 ORTG) in 513 minutes.
Curry/Green/Looney: +13.0 net rating (115.2 ORTG) in 492 minutes.
Thompson/Wiggins/Looney: +6.6 net rating (112.5 ORTG) in 412 minutes.
Wiggins/OPJ/Looney: +8.7 net rating (113.0 ORTG) in 352 minutes.
GPII/Wiggins/Looney: +14.1 net rating (114.1 ORTG) in 347 minutes.
Curry/Thompson/Looney: +11.6 net rating (112.8 ORTG) in 327 minutes.
Curry/OPJ/Looney: +14.2 net rating (116.2 ORTG) in 295 minutes.
Curry/GPII/Looney: +20.2 net rating (119.0 ORTG) in 269 minutes.
Poole/OPJ/Looney: +5.7 net rating (112.6 ORTG) in 233 minutes.
Poole/Thompson/Looney: +3.1 net rating (111.1 ORTG) in 230 minutes.
Poole/GPII/Looney: +12.5 net rating.
Kevon Looney’s three-man combos consist entirely of players who were central to Steve Kerr’s playoff rotation. Notably absent from this top 15 are any of the Warriors’ undrafted G-League alums (save for Gary Payton II) or any of the team’s rookies. Looney’s positive numbers are due, in part, because he played mostly with the players Steve Kerr trusted to win games, but also because he knew how to fit in with those players. That Looney is effective alongside Steph Curry is no surprise, but it’s notable that the second-highest ORTG here is of Looney alongside the Curry/Poole backcourt, which you can imagine as a flurry of Looney’s DHOs and rugged screens to set Curry and his doppegänger free.
I can’t let an article go on this long without signing the praises and mourning the loss of Gary Payton II or Otto Porter Jr., so let’s briefly gawk at the Curry/GPII/Looney combo not only having a DRTG below 90, but having the best offensive rating of any combo listed above here.
Notable 2-man combos (positive ones bolded):
Wiggins/Looney: +7.3 net rating (113.1 ORTG) in 1443 minutes.
Curry/Looney: +11.6 net rating (114.7 ORTG) in 1171 minutes.
Poole/Looney: +7.3 net rating (114.7 ORTG) in 1115 minutes.
Green/Looney: +5.6 net rating (111.6 ORTG) in 659 minutes.
Thompson/Looney: +5.5 net rating (110.9 ORTG) in 495 minutes.
OPJ/Looney: +7.0 net rating (112.7 ORTG) in 447 minutes.
GPII/Looney: +13.3 net rating (115.6 ORTG) in 440 minutes.
Lee/Looney: -10.7 net rating (104.7 ORTG) in 293 minutes.
Kuminga/Looney: -5.8 net rating (108.4 ORTG) in 243 minutes.
Moody/Looney: -2.8 net rating (107.2 ORTG) in 242 minutes.
JTA/Looney: -10.0 net rating (105.3 ORTG) in 213 minutes.
Chiozza/Looney: -23.5 net rating (100.7 ORTG) in 72 minutes.
Iguodala/Looney: +33.8 net rating (114.1 ORTG) in 63 minutes.
Bjelica/Looney: +16.7 net rating (111.1 ORTG) in 18 minutes.
Weatherspoon/Looney: -49.1 net rating (66.7 ORTG) in 9 minutes.
In the two-man combos, we see the same phenomenon play out as we did in the three-man combos — those who played rotation minutes in the Finals had positive net ratings with Kevon Looney in the regular season. The Looney duo with the highest net ratings was GPII/Looney and I was curious to know how much an impact Steph Curry had on the performances of these duos. Here’s what I found from Cleaning the Glass:
Curry/GPII/Looney had a +20.0 net rating, but if you remove Curry from the GPII/Looney duo’s minutes, that net rating shrinks to -1.4. What’s most surprising is that GPII/Looney sans Curry has an ORTG better than league average, but their defensive rating of 114.5 is in the 33rd percentile. You shouldn’t be surprised that Jordan Poole figures prominently in these non-Steph minutes for the GPII/Looney duo.
It’s not terribly surprising that Kevon Looney duos with Jonathan Kuminga or Moses Moody performed poorly given that both players are rookies and that a Kuminga/Looney frontcourt lacks credible spacing. I’d expect the Moody/Looney duo to perform better next season — they tallied a +8.3 net rating with Curry on the court — but the struggles of the Kuminga/Looney pairing offer a glimpse into the substitution pattern Jenga Steve Kerr will have to do next season.
Kuminga/Looney had a -6.5 net rating in its minutes without Steph Curry, but much to my surprise it was on the defensive end where they struggled and not on offense; without Steph, Kuminga/Looney had a 124.9 ORTG and... they bled points with a 131.4 DRTG. Here’s where it gets weirder: Curry/Kuminga/Looney defended quite well together, but they only managed an ORTG of 100, which ranks in the third percentile, and a -7.0 net rating.
Development is not linear in the NBA and projecting potential is something that advanced metrics don’t do all that well yet. That is to say, Curry/Kuminga/Looney is not a doomed trio, but I also doubt that a Kuminga/Looney has the floor spacing or defensive ability to hold up in a sample size larger than 233 possessions. Kevon Looney is rightfully entrenched as the Warriors’ starting center, but what does that mean for Kuminga’s minutes if James Wiseman is expected to play in the second unit at the center? Does Kuminga play more alongside Draymond or JaMychal Green instead to tighten up the Warriors’ defense? Can Kuminga/Wiseman play alongside the grownups? You get the picture.
Kevon Looney’s playoff performance:
2.4 points, 4.2 rebounds, and 1.0 assists in 13.4 minutes per game on 56/0/50 shooting splits in 5 games against the Denver Nuggets.
5.3 points, 8.2 rebounds, and 2.0 assists in 18.5 minutes per game on 65/0/50 shooting splits in 6 games against the Memphis Grizzlies.
10.6 points, 10.6 rebounds, and 3.0 assists in 28.0 minutes per game on 71/0/62 shooting splits in 5 games against the Dallas Mavericks.
5.0 points, 7.5 rebounds, and 2.7 assists in 21.7 minutes per game on 43/38/91 shooting splits in 6 games against the Boston Celtics.
Over the course of the Warriors’ 22-game championship run, Kevon Looney immortalized himself as a fan favorite and put up historic rebounding numbers. Here are some numbers that contextualize his (second) playoff breakout:
Here are the playoff lineups involving Kevon Looney that played at least 10 possessions together:
The two starting foundational starting lineups with and without Steph Curry are the ones that performed best in a large sample size. Three of the six negative lineups here actually include Steph Curry and they aren’t ones that you would necessarily expect to perform poorly, such as Curry/Poole/Thompson/OPJ/Looney or Curry/Thompson/Wiggins/OPJ/Looney. One of the more intriguing lineups in this list, Poole/Moody/Thompson/OPJ/Looney, played most of its minutes in the Western Conference Finals. Otto Porter Jr.’s departure obviously hurts, but the general concept here — a Poole/Moody/Thompson trio surrounded by a sturdy stretch 4 + Looney — is an intriguing one for non-Steph minutes next season.
Below is Kevon Looney’s shot chart from the playoffs, courtesy of Positive Residual. Take note of how Looney cut out shots from outside of the paint during the playoffs:
In the Warriors’ first series of the playoffs, Kevon Looney matched up against the reigning MVP, Nikola Jokic. During the regular season, Looney actually defended Jokic quite well; by my calculations, Jokic shot 12.9% points below his average on post-ups against Loon in the three regular seasons that the Warriors’ veterans played. Through the first four games of the Warriors’ first-round series, Looney played 13, 11, 9, and 11 minutes and in the second and third games of the series, he grabbed exactly one rebound apiece. Wild. Looney’s stout defense against Jokic allowed them to stick mostly to single-coverage post during Loon’s minutes, but because Nikola Jokic is the two-time MVP/Hakeem Olajuwon disguised as a chain-smoking Michelin Man doppelgänger, possessions like these were common:
During that first-round series, the Warriors leaned heavily on the Nickname Lineup of Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Green, whose explosive offensive runs turned the first two games of the series into blowouts. That lineup closed out the Nuggets on the road in Game 3 and might well have done so in the next game if Draymond Green hadn’t fouled out in the fourth quarter.
Ironically, the game of that series in which Looney played the most minutes was Game 5, when the Nickname Lineup made their first and only start of the playoffs. In just 7 minutes together, the Nickname Lineup had a 150 DRTG and a -37.5 net rating. Looney’s minutes 9 with the traditional starting lineup produced a +45 net rating and 80 DRTG and while he did not close the game, his minutes helped end the series and avoid a trip back to Denver.
The legend of Kevon Looney was made during the Warriors’ second-round series against the Memphis Grizzlies, a series where he was not expected to play much of a role. In Anthony Slater’s preview of the series, he predicted, accurately, that the rebounding battle would define the series. But Slater also expected — and I did too! — that Looney would not be long for the series and quoted a Warriors’ source who “predicted recently that centers wouldn’t last long in this series on either side.” Here’s Slater on the Nickname Lineup’s potential flaws against the Grizzlies:
That group is a nightmare to defend. It shredded Denver the first two playoff games and graded out as the most potent of any lineup (plus-23) in the series. But it dipped negative the final three games. The Nuggets upped their physicality and discovered ways to leverage power to combat skill. They rebounded 30.4 percent of their misses against that lineup.
That’s an offensive rebound rate that would’ve ranked fifth-best in the NBA this season. Which team led the league? Memphis. The Grizzlies rebounded 33.8 percent of their misses. It’s essential to their attack and a number that could define this upcoming second-round battle.
[...]
[A small-ball] environment could help reduce the offensive rebounding onslaught the Warriors are protecting against. But even the smaller Memphis lineups go after misses relentlessly. Brandon Clarke’s 23 offensive rebounds are second-most in the playoffs, the Grizzlies guards and wings chase loose balls aggressively and Jaren Jackson Jr. will be the tallest player on the floor in the most important moments of the series.
Kevon Looney averaged just 15.1 minutes a game in the first five games of the Western Conference Semifinals. As Slater predicted, the Warriors opted against starting Looney in order to space the floor better against the Grizzlies; Gary Payton II started the first two games of the series until Dillon Brooks’ dirty foul took him out of the series, at which point Jonathan Kuminga slotted alongside Draymond Green in the frontcourt. Through the first four games of the series, Green and Looney didn’t play a single minute together against the Grizzlies. 56 of Looney’s 59 minutes in those first four games came alongside Jordan Poole and the Warriors had a +11.2 net rating in those minutes.
In the first game of the series, Draymond Green was ejected late in the first half. Looney and Jordan Poole started in the third quarter and during that period, the Warriors went from down 6 points to having a one-point lead going into the fourth quarter. Looney was a team-high +8 in those minutes and played 10 of his 18 minutes during that period. Here are a few clips:
Looney did not play in the fourth quarter of Game 1 and only played 8 minutes in the Warriors’ close loss in Game 2, all but 13 seconds of which came in the first quarter after Gary Payton II broke his elbow and Draymond Green picked up two quick fouls. In Looney and GPII’s place, Draymond Green, Jonathan Kuminga, and Otto Porter Jr. got the rest of the Warriors’ frontcourt minutes and Kuminga started the next three games of that series. Looney played 17 and 15 minutes in the Warriors’ wins at home in games 3 and 4 of the series, the former a blowout win and the latter a nerve-wracking and ugly 90’s style win.
It wasn’t until Game 5 of the series, with the Warriors losing control of the game in the second quarter that Kevon Looney and Draymond Green played their first minutes together. In a 39-point loss, Looney actually managed to only be a -9 in his 15 minutes, but the Green/Looney frontcourt did not look suitable for this series:
The Green/Looney frontcourt had a -27.3 net rating in its four minutes together in Game 5 of the series, but such a small sample size is effectively meaningless and after that loss, Draymond Green still felt strongly that playing alongside Looney would sturdy the Warriors’ shaky interior presence. Prior to Game 6, Green and Steph Curry went to acting head coach, Mike Brown, and implored him to start Looney. After that game, Green explained :
“I know the worry was the offensive end and just how they were guarding us, [...] “but we were getting dominated from the start. When you look at the (previous) eight quarters prior to this game, we got dominated for seven of them. … So we just knew we needed to come out and establish an inside presence to start the game off and not worry so much about our scoring. We’ll figure out how to score the basketball.”
Green and Curry’s insistence on Looney starting paid off and then some. In a career-high 35 minutes, Looney pulled down 22 rebounds, 11 of which came on the offensive glass, and the Warriors dominated their opponent in the interior. For the first time all series, the Warriors led at the end of the first quarter and Looney played 8 minutes in that period and pulled down 11 rebounds. At the 2:14 mark of the third quarter, Looney re-entered the game alongside... Nemanja Bjelica!!!!??? and didn’t sit again. Looney grabbed 8 rebounds, 6 on the offensive end, and dished out 4 assists in the deciding fourth period, including this pass to Klay Thompson for a dagger three:
Here is a clip of all 22 of Looney’s rebounds in that game:
After the game, Looney delivered a delightful postgame quote about his dominance on the glass:
Kevon Looney followed up his iconic Game 6 performance with an impressive series against the Dallas Mavericks where he averaged both a double-double and a career-high in minutes. The Mavericks tried, as many teams have before, to attack Looney on switches throughout the series, but to no avail. Here are a few of Looney’s defensive highlights from Game 1:
In Game 2 of the series, Looney scored a career-high 21 points and tallied a double-double with 12 rebounds. Looney played 32 minutes that game and his 18:45 minutes played in the second half were second only to Andrew Wiggins. The Warriors trailed by 14 points at the start of the third quarter but pulled off an impressive comeback in the third quarter that snuffed out the most significant threat the Mavericks gave them that entire series. Looney was on the court for the bulk of that run — when he checked back into the game at the 6:01 mark of the third quarter, the Warriors trailed by 11 points and when he checked with 6:33 left in the final period, the Warriors led by 8 points. Here are some of Looney’s highlights from that game:
Looney followed up his 21-point double-double with a 9-point and 12-rebound performance in the Warriors’ Game 3 victory on the road. In addition to the near double-double, Looney also dished out 4 assists, which he ended up doing three separate times in the Western Conference Finals. In the Warriors’ lone loss in Game 4, Looney only played 19 minutes and tallied a -20. The Warriors’ starting lineup tallied a startling -45.5 net rating in 12 minutes together, but equally damaging was a Poole/Moody/Thompson/Kuminga/Looney second unit that would normally include Otto Porter Jr., who missed the game with an injury, and had a -59.8 net rating in its minutes together.
In the Game 5 game of the WCF, Looney joined forces yet again with Klay Thompson to deliver a closeout victory. In 30 minutes, Looney had 10 points and 18 rebounds, 7 of which came on the offensive glass, and included yet another offensive board that turned into a dagger three for Klay:
In 8 fourth-quarter minutes, Looney scored just 2 points but picked up 7 rebounds and 2 assists and made several big plays that you can see below (take note also of Nemanja Bjelica alongside Looney in the frontcourt in a closeout game!!!):
Kevon Looney entered the 2022 NBA Finals as the obvious choice to start at the center. In the first game of the series, Looney was a -2 in a loss and the Celtics, per The Ringer’s Kevin O’Connor scored 20 points on 17 possessions where they attacked Looney. In the second game of the series, Looney scored 12 points on 6/6 shooting and grabbed 7 rebounds in the Warriors’ blowout victory. Looney was a direct beneficiary of the Celtics’ attentive defense of Steph Curry, which you can see below in a few examples:
Looney played 16 minutes in the Warriors’ road loss in Game 3 and the Warriors were outrebounded 47-31 in a game that grew out of hand during a fourth quarter where Looney did not play a single minute. Steve Kerr would later admit to a mistake in not playing Looney more minutes in that loss, but he found a way to play Looney more minutes by bringing him off of the bench and starting Otto Porter Jr. at the 5. Here’s Andre Iguodala on Kerr’s rotation tweak and how Looney factored in:
I would say the way we broke them down too hasn’t been spoken about much. It got to the point where certain guys couldn’t get in the game! And Steve made a great move when we brought Loon off of the bench and it was a specific time Loon went in. As soon as they made a certain move, Loon knew to go in the game. Steve said, “Hey Loon, when then this happens, don’t even ask [if] are you going in, just get up and go in the game,” and we did that from game 4 on and nobody talks about that! [...] The league used to be like this, if you had a player on your team when you won a championship who could change the complexity of a series — and he did it more than once, he did it against Memphis, he did it against Dallas, and he did it in the finals — we sat down Draymond for a couple minutes, for Loon. Nobody is comprehending that.
As far as I was able to tell, the “certain move” that Iguodala was referring to was the Celtics going to lineups with just one “true” big man. In Game 4, Looney played 28 huge minutes and logged a team-high +21. During the game’s most important minutes, Draymond Green sat while a lineup of Curry/Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Looney turned a 4-point deficit into a 3-point lead by the 3:05 mark fo the fourth quarter. In addition to scoring the dagger bucket that you’ll see below, Looney’s presence gave the Warriors an unexpected interior scoring advantage, per FiveThirtyEight’s James l. Jackson, who wrote:
Over the Warriors’ 28 minutes with Looney on the court in Game 4, they outscored the Celtics by 12 in points from the paint, while they were outscored by 6 in that area during his 20 minutes on the bench.
Looney played 16 and 21 minutes in the last two games of the Finals. Despite foul trouble in Game 5, Looney was +21 in his 16 minutes and played 8 huge minutes in the fourth quarter. In four minutes with a second-unit lineup of Poole/Thompson/Wiggins/Green/Looney, the Warriors outscored the Celtics by 5 points and when Steph Curry checked back in, the Curry/GPII/Thompson/Wiggins/Looney lineup won its minutes to the tune of a +81.9 net rating. Looney was on the court for most of Andrew Wiggins’ biggest buckets in the closing period, including this layup, which began with a split action post entry to Looney:
In the deciding Game 6, Looney scored only took two shots and didn’t score a single point, but honestly, who cares? Although Looney was not on the court for the 21-0 run that spanned the first and second quarters or the explosive third-quarter run that pushed the Warriors’ lead as high as 22 points, he played 6 minutes in the fourth quarter and the Warriors held on, which is all they needed to do put that game away. When the final buzzer sounded, Kevon Looney finished the game as a three-time champion, and even more improbably, he’d played the fourth-most games in NBA history throughout a combined regular season and playoffs.
What is next for Kevon Looney?
For the first time in his career, Kevon Looney will enter an NBA season as the Warrior’s unquestioned starter at the center spot. Steve Kerr has made it clear that James Wiseman’s role will be to back up and learn from Looney and it’s hard to imagine that changing next season, especially after Looney signed a three-year/$25.5 million contract. But in the final year of Looney’s contract, only $3 million of his salary is guaranteed. If you read between the lines, that may look like a sign that the Warriors are preparing for a future without Kevon Looney. In that 2024-25 season, Kevon Looney will be just 28 years old, but he isn’t the typical 28-year-old and I understand why the Warriors could imagine a future where his seemingly withered body gives out on him.
Kevon Looney’s dedication to his craft cannot be questioned. He turned his career around by making extreme changes to his diet and conditioning habits and then turned himself into one of the NBA’s elite rebounders in his 7th season by improving his rebounding techniques. It’s hard to imagine Looney fading into an early twilight of his career unless another freak injury befalls him. Injuries aside, James Wiseman’s organizational import could still spell the end of Looney’s time with the Warriors. During that partially guaranteed third year of Looney’s contract, Wiseman will be on his second contract. The question is, will Wiseman be on the Warriors when he signs that second contract?
My opinion on James Wiseman has been stated at length; I don’t think his promise is worth bloated luxury tax payments for the Warriors and especially not at the expense of new contracts for proven championship winners like Andrew Wiggins, Jordan Poole, or Draymond Green. Wiseman has scarce time to prove himself worthy of the Warriors’ investment in him and he’ll have to beat out not just Looney, but Draymond Green, Jonathan Kuminga, and JaMychal Green for frontcourt minutes.
I expect Kevon Looney to be the man for the Warriors come playoff time, but it’s not out of the question that he loses minutes to Wiseman in the early season as the Warriors try and figure out what they have in their oft-injured third-year center. Barring significant shooting improvements from James Wiseman and Jonathan Kuminga, the Warriors’ best frontcourt shooter is JaMychal Green, a career 36.6% shooter from three coming off of an outlier year where he shot a brutal 26.6% from deep.
If frontcourt spacing becomes a concern for the Warriors, it’s not out of the question that Wiseman or Kuminga play more minutes with the Splash Brothers at Looney’s expense. The playoff success of the Poole/Thompson backcourt with shooters like Moses Moody and Otto Porter Jr. alongside Looney and/or Draymond Green open up the possibility of a more Looney-centric second unit to minimize the spacing and defensive damages of a Kuminga/Wiseman frontcourt.
Outside of the Warriors’ legendary big three, Kevon Looney is now the second-oldest player on the Warriors roster and he is a proven championship winner. Looney has proven that he can adjust to role changes and fluctuating minutes and given the Warriors’ frontcourt construction, I suspect that he’ll do so again — and willingly — for the good of the team. Regardless of what sacrifices Looney makes, he should be a key player on and off the court for the Warriors and I look forward to seeing if he has any more ceiling left as he enters his 8th season in the league at the ripe age of 26.
Looney is a beast. It’s truly incredible what he’s been able to accomplish given his health problems. Dedication was spot-on. Perseverance also comes to mind. And intelligence: this isn’t working, where can I get help? How can I get better?
I am in awe of the character and work ethic of Kevon Looney.