If the Warriors really got ‘Oklahoma Buddy’ Hield, look out

After the Warriors’ season-opening blowout win over Portland, Buddy Hield took a moment to reflect on what it’s like to be a Warrior. To play alongside Steph Curry, who he has studied closely since he was a kid. To play within the system he’s admired from afar for years.

“I don’t want to bring it up,” Hield said, “But the last time I was free like this was in Oklahoma. Guys always playing for me, passing the ball and trying to get me open. It was fun, I’m not going to lie.”

The admission must be startling to the rest of the 29 teams in the league. At Oklahoma, Hield was a phenomenon. The consensus National Player of the Year as a senior, he lit up overmatched teenagers on a nightly basis with his unmatched range and unending movement.

So far, it’s not hyperbole to say that guy is here in Golden State.

Hield led the Warriors with 22 points on opening night. A game later, he poured in a game-high 27 points, drilling seven of his nine 3-pointers. In his first 35 minutes as a Warrior, he has registered 49 points.

“It looks like Buddy from Oklahoma again,” Draymond Green said after Hield’s encore performance in Utah.

If the Warriors can bottle up Oklahoma Buddy and pour him out over 20 minutes per game, they’ll have one of the most lethal bench weapons in the league. Nobody shoots it like Hield, who leads the NBA in 3-point makes since 2019. And nobody, except Steph Curry, runs quite like Hield, who draws defensive attention by sprinting his lanes and constantly running off screens.

The Warriors had an idea of what it was getting when it acquired Hield in the six-team trade that sent Klay Thompson to Dallas. But they never could have known they’d get this version of Hield, and they didn’t know how quickly he’d acclimate himself in the Warriors’ veteran locker room.

Already, even as the new guy, Hield has brought a contagious energy to the team. He livens up shootarounds, organizes team dinners, cracks up his teammates on the bench and has embodied the unselfishness Steve Kerr is asking of his team.

“That’s exactly what he was at Oklahoma,” Hield’s college coach, Lon Kruger, told this news organization. “Extremely positive. High energy level every day. Came to practice with great enthusiasm. Super influence on his teammates. As enjoyable of a guy to coach as we’ve ever had, because he was all about winning as a team and helping his teammates and team get better every day.”

In college, Hield would compete with his roommate, Isaiah Cousins, to see who could get to the gym first every morning. Even when the accolades started rolling in, Hield never let the stardom get to him, Kruger said. The kid from the Bahamas stayed confident, but humble.

As a senior, Hield averaged 25 points per game while shooting 45.7% from 3. His 147 3-point makes that season approached Curry’s single-season record from Davidson (162).

The only current Warrior to witness the Oklahoma Buddy phenomenon in the moment was Kevon Looney. Early in the 2014 season, Looney’s UCLA visited Atlantis for a non-conference matchup with the Sooners. It was a home game for Hield, and he showed out.

“He kicked our ass,” Looney told this news organization. “That was like his coming out party.”

Looney had heard rumblings of the guy from the Bahamas before the game, but didn’t know who Hield was. He wasn’t a highly touted recruit — growing up in the Bahamas and doing a prep year in Oklahoma — and started his college career with two forgettable seasons.

The Bruins center quickly got introduced to Hield, who led the Sooners to a 75-65 win by giving NBA-caliber defenders like Norman Powell the business. Hield scored 17 of his game-high 20 points in the second half, including 10 points during a sizzling, 90-second flurry that sealed the Sooners’ win.

“He was doing the same thing he’s doing now,” said Looney, who had 16 points and a game-high 15 rebounds for UCLA. “He was shooting it from everywhere. Always moving without the ball. He was kind of doing the same thing he’s doing now. His shot-making was incredible in college. Really tough to stop.”

Those same things Looney referred to were omnipresent in Golden State’s first two games — a historically dominant opening. Hield flew off flare screens. He worked the two-man game with Curry. He launched a contested 30-footer off a jump ball. He drilled corner 3s like they were layups. He ran the floor hard, forcing backpedaling defenses to either commit to him on the 3-point arc or give up driving lanes to the rim.

Against Utah on Friday night, Hield also flashed an expanded floor game, registering six assists and four rebounds. Two of his dimes were beauties — one behind-the-head kickout to Andrew Wiggins for 3 and a left-handed hook pass to Curry on the wing for another triple.

Hield has been working on the latter since he was a kid. His coaches growing up would scold him for attempting it, but after years of honing the skill and building strength, he can execute the difficult pass.

“I got it from (Curry), watching him, low-key,” Hield said.

Hield has hit 12 of his 16 3-point attempts to start the year. Even he isn’t going to hit 75% of his treys for the entire season, but his impact in the role previously occupied by Thompson looks sustainable.

Hield’s 22.5 plus-minus ranks fourth in the NBA through two games. In the 24 minutes Hield and Curry have shared the court, the Warriors have outscored opponents by 79.3 points per 100 possessions — the best two-man combination on the team.

When Hield says the Warriors feels like Oklahoma, he’s thinking about how fast the ball moves. He’s thinking about how his teammates seek him out on the perimeter, and how he returns the favor. How everyone puts their egos aside to play the right way, falling in line behind Curry, Green and Kerr.

Not everything orbits around him like it did in Norman. But Golden State’s style of play is just as empowering.

“You don’t have to press so much,” Hield said. “You just know guys are sacrificing and being unselfish. When you’re on teams like that, good things always come. I know my teammates look at me to shoot the ball, but I look for them too. It’s just organic.”

Hield has had to press in the past. Even as he’s rained 3s — hitting at least 200 in six straight seasons — he has bounced around from New Orleans to Sacramento to Indiana to Philadelphia.

But now, it seems pretty clear that he has found a home.

“Buddy’s just someone whose vibe is just different every day,” center Trayce Jackson-Davis said. “Loves being here, loves coming to work. He’s going to get out and run and shoot the 3. It’s probably the best situation for him, because all he has to do is run and shoot. We love him, glad he’s on our team.”