When the Warriors trot on the court for pre-game warmups, the shooters, especially the guards, are pulled to the perimeter almost by magnets. Klay Thompson will drill a few dozen shots from deep, then towel off. Draymond Green will locate his money spots on the floor, slightly off center and just beyond the three-point stripe, and fire away.
Steph Curry gets a crowd of TV cameras and fans and puts on a show before the show. First he’ll execute his two-handed dribbling routine, then dash around the three-point circle for a dizzying game of catch and shoot, rarely if ever stepping a foot inside. Finally he’ll finish up by tossing shots from the tunnel entrance.
This practice routine enhances the Warriors’ status as the premier three-point shooters in a three-point-shooting league, although there is a stubborn outcast among them, a lonely figure who looks like he took a wrong turn and found himself on unfamiliar turf. Shaun Livingston grabs a ball, dribbles a few times and shoots, never more than 20 feet from the basket, each and every time.
“His mid-range game,” said Thompson, “is a thing of beauty.”
He’s hopelessly lost in the new age of basketball, a man on a sparsely populated island surrounded by a sea of analytics-programmed players who’ve been groomed to adjust with the times. For the last several years the NBA has become a league of two offensive extremes. Players either take their shots at the rim or beyond the arc, and this trend has made the game more interesting or more infuriating, depending on your tastes.
That’s what made Game 1 of the NBA Finals so unusual. The Cavaliers and especially the Warriors both feasted on long-distance shooting in their journey to arrive here, but the leading scorer for the Warriors, and the player who changed the game and scored 20 points on 8-of-10 shooting in Golden State’s 104-89 victory never once went deep.
You can call Livingston a dinosaur, since he has only attempted 63 three-pointers in his 11-year career; Curry cracked 400 for this season only. Or you can applaud him for sticking to his strength and making himself a useful and unusual dimension, at least for Game 1.
“That’s obviously his comfort zone,” Curry said. “Most of the time when he’s in that position, if the defense doesn’t collapse, he getting wide-open looks and he’s got a comfortable range. It gives the defense something to have to deal with. They guard me and Klay a different way than they would guard Shaun. So you have to make those adjustments, which are hard to make on the fly.”
When Livingston was drafted in 2005, the league had a far different look. Big men were valued and scoring was balanced. In Livingston’s rookie season, the Spurs and Pistons went seven games in the NBA Finals and took 203 threes in that series, an average of 28 per game combined. Last season in a six-game series, the Warriors and Cavs combined for 353, an average of about 59 per game. And they could shoot more in this rematch.
Between then and now, a revolution was started. The NBA took a cue from European basketball and began to feature the three-point shot more prominently. The message was received by boys and teenagers with big-league dreams: Adapt or die. And so coaches on the AAU level and college force-fed the three-point shot. Guards either shot the three or attacked the rim. Taller players became stretch-fours and fives. Mid-range drills suddenly ceased and all muscle memory was lost. Many players today lack the instincts to shoot mid-range, and the know-how. To compensate, they’ll shoot floaters. Or panic and pass. Or run back out to their comfort zone and pass up a 15-footer for a 25-footer.
“Analytics,” said Livingston with a shrug. “It’s all about the corner three. What the three-point shot has done is change the floor and space the court, giving the point guards and drivers some lanes to travel.”
The new wave of general managers sneezed in the direction of old-school shooters, yet Livingston has no regrets about refusing to adjust.
“Just because a guy isn’t a three-point shooter doesn’t mean he can’t score,” he said. “I always felt my game would resonate with Steph and Klay, giving us a versatile feel.”
Livingston remained a mid-range shooter by accident, literally so. After he suffered his gruesome broken leg, he fell back to old habits during his recovery, fearful that trying something new would cost him during his comeback. He wasn’t up for reinvention. He wanted a sense of security, familiarity.
“In high school I was more a mid-range player and I played off the dribble,” he said. “Obviously with my injury, I lost a lot of athleticism and had to pick and choose my spots and use my height to my advantage. Going through rehab gave me a perspective for what my game would be. I lost a lot and felt like a retired player, but got it back and eventually began to trust my body.”
Had the injury never happened, would he have adjusted and stretched his range?
“Maybe,” he said. “Maybe. I would say probably so.”
After a shrug and a pause: “Everything happens for a reason.”
The mid-range club is getting more exclusive by the year. There’s Livingston, Dwyane Wade, maybe Jimmy Butler and John Wall and Russell Westbrook. But there are no signs the game is ready to boomerang back to favoring 15-footers.
“It’s a copy cat league,” said Livingston. “You never know.”
Is it possible to copy something that no longer exists? No matter how many solid shooting games Livingston will have in this series, it’ll be lost by the sight of Curry and Thompson drilling from deep. Those are the players that other teams are thirsting for, taking the shots that 12-year-olds are heaving in the gyms, not the next Livingston. Three-pointers are the new tomahawk dunks.
Veteran NBA writer Shaun Powell has worked for newspapers and other publications for more than 25 years. You can e-mail him here or follow him on Twitter.
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