Zaza Pachulia brought trait to Warriors that old-school, new-school centers need

JaVale McGee was no longer the butt of jokes during his two years with the Warriors. The veteran center, in his ninth and 10th NBA seasons, injected energy into the dominance of a dynasty and became a two-time champion. He still provided plenty of comedic relief, too. Zaza Pachulia remembers laughing after every practice for two years as McGee’s teammate. Not for any wild antics, but because of how he tried to show off another part of his game. This is when McGee began letting it fly from long distance. “We would always make fun of JaVale McGee,” Pachulia said to NBC Sports Bay Area on the latest episode of the Dubs Talk podcast. “After practice, he would just start shooting threes. I’d say, ‘Dude, you don’t need to shoot threes. There’s no place for you (to shoot). We got Steph, Klay, KD – even Nick Young. We have so many players that are 3-point shooters. That’s the last thing Steve wants to see, you shooting threes. Just set the screen, roll and be a presence inside.’” In two seasons on the Warriors, McGee attempted to shoot nine threes. He took three in his first season and six in his second. He didn’t make a single one. And somehow McGee was miles ahead on what the center position in basketball has turned into.Almost 10 years have passed since Pachulia joined the Warriors as a free agent in the summer of 2016. A little more than seven years have passed since he last played in a game, and it has changed rapidly in that span. Now, instead of laughing at McGee, Pachulia finds himself debating his two teenage sons about basketball. The topic of 3-pointers gets brought up a lot. More specifically, the topic of Dad never making a three in his 16-year NBA career. Pachulia can laugh at the facts now. Standing at 6-foot-11, one inch shorter than McGee, Pachulia took 31 threes in his career and missed every time. When told he shot a career high of four threes in his final season, Pachulia jokingly says, “Stop it&excl; Stop it&excl;” For comparison’s sake, Warriors center Quinten Post had 37 games this season of shooting at least four threes. Post is a true 7-footer. He also lives outside of the paint, shooting 456 threes through his first two seasons, which is 199 more than his 257 2-point shots. It all starts from square one in development, whether that means internationally for a player like Post, or through the AAU circuit for most American-born players. Trainers never told Pachulia to pop and shoot a three after setting a screen. They used terms that have been lost on today’s players. “Everything was Turn 5,” Pachulia recalls. “When was the last time you guys heard about Turn 5? I bet you this generation doesn’t know what the term Turn 5 is. Back then, everyone knew what Turn 5 was. “The big man was setting the screen for the guard, the guard was coming out onto the wing and catching the ball and dropping the ball to the big man. And the big man had to go to work, right?” Pachulia didn’t really have a chance to transform his game. By the time his position was changing, he already was hitting his early thirties. He knew what type of player he was and focused on excelling at his role as opposed to trying to be somebody else. He tells his sons it’s that acceptance and understanding that allowed him to play for so long at the highest level as a second-round draft pick from the country of Georgia. But there’s a trait Pachulia is proudest of that every big man past, present and in the future, as basketball evolves forever, needs: Toughness. “Players like me can thrive with anything, to be honest,” Pachulia says. “Every team needs a toughness. Every team needs a smart player who’s going to be a good teammate on the court and a good locker room guy, and on the court is going to come and is going to be a solid player. I love solid players that every single night you know what they’re going to bring. “You know they’re going to bring the toughness, you know they’re going to set a good screen. You know they’re going to be a good rebounder, you know they’re going to box out. Just the small things. … I signed a one-year deal with the Warriors and then I re-signed with the Warriors. They brought me back. That tells you something, right? That’s the best compliment you can get, when a team brings you back.” About five hours after our conversation, Victor Wembanyama, the San Antonio Spurs’ Create-A-Player center who’s listed at 7-foot-4 but many believe is closer to 7-6 or 7-7, starts Game 6 of the Western Conference Finals with a three, a blocked shot and another three, in that order. Wembanyama went 4 of 9 from 3-point range to force a Game 7 against the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder, but he also had 10 rebounds – four offensive and six defensive – and three blocked shots. The combination of his logic-defying skills at his size, and at just 22 years old, has Wembanyama being called the “first perfect big man” by Shaquille O’Neal, whose brute size and strength alone made him maybe the most physically dominant player ever. Pachulia was a rookie when O’Neal played his last season as a Laker in 2003-04. Teams still carried five or more centers at a time just to try and slow down Shaq during the early part of Pachulia’s career. “If you don’t have a presence inside as well, being 7-foot-6 and to just keep shooting threes from outside and not help the team with your inside presence, you’re not a perfect big man in my opinion,” Pachulia says. “… I think Wemby figured it out, how you adapt to this new game, but at the same time, how you take advantage of your height and still be dominant inside as well. That’s a combination. That’s a balance. That’s IQ, understanding when you’re going to push the right buttons at the right time.” Being a 3-point shooter in the body of an NBA center is part expectation and part luxury. You’d better be able to at least be a threat. Only as long as you know you better own the glass. You’d better be a wall setting a screen and you better not be afraid to throw an elbow. The perfect big man is a mixture of old-school toughness, able to adapt to the modern game, in the scouting eye of Pachulia. It’s balance that begins with the right mentality.From Shaqtin’ a Fool to collecting rings, McGee got the last laugh, and perhaps could even see the next phase of his position. Pachulia passes down every lesson basketball taught him to his sons. He can’t tell stories of catching fire from 3-point range, opting to grow alongside the game years into retirement, watching them blossom with it.“I was already 33, 34. It’s not a time to change,” Pachulia says. “Let me ride it out with what makes me special, and then you just live with the results. But guess what, now my kids are shooting threes like crazy. They’ve grown up in a different era. “Today, I keep telling the parents and kids, ‘Hey man, work on your 3-point shooting,’ because if you don’t, you’re not going to have a place.”Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast

Zaza Pachulia brought trait to Warriors that old-school, new-school centers need

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