While all the scrubs around him are taking full advantage of the fact that the Warriors’ lineup is scrubtastic enough to allow them to take hella shots whenever they want, Willie Cauley-Stein’s usage has actually gone down from his Sacramento days. This short stop in Golden State is his one chance to shoulder more of the scoring load, something that it seems like he’s always wanted given how many shots he was taking in his last two seasons with the Kings, but now he doesn’t want it? Now he just wants to be a “dunks and rebounding” kinda guy? What happened to the WCS who would spam midrange jumpers and hook shots with horrible efficiency?
I suppose that WCS signed with the Warriors for a reason. He thought he was signing with a superteam that would let him coast to a ring while playing the JaVale McGee role. There were plenty of other landing spots for him that would have given him a bigger role than that, but WCS went for the one that was close by and was comfortable and would get him a fancy jewel-encrusted ring to slip on his finger. Now that the Warriors are definitely not a superteam and are definitely not going to be providing WCS with any sort of ring, jewel-encrusted or otherwise, WCS isn’t willing to deviate from what he imagined his role on the team would be.
Going off in a different direction for this description, this is the first time I’ve really seen WCS without a beard in a long time, and it makes him look really weird. He looks way too wholesome, honestly. I miss the “crazy pirate” WCS of two years ago, with the dreads and the headband and the bushy beard. Clean-cut WCS is not something I am comfortable with.