The Whiteboard: This is the Warriors when Kelly Oubre Jr. shows up

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Thursday night’s Super Saiyan effort by Kelly Oubre Jr. was the finest game of his young career, which obviously makes it the best game of his Warriors‘ tenure. In a nationally televised matchup against Luka Doncic and the Dallas Mavericks, Oubre poured in 40 points on just 21 shots, hitting 7-of-10 from beyond the arc and adding 8 rebounds, 2 assists, a steal and a block.

It can not be oversold how much distance there was between this game and the level of production Oubre had provided the Warriors to this point. In his 22ng game with the team, it was just the third time he’d scored more than 20 points and just the seventh time he had made at least half of his shot attempts. Coming into last night he was averaging just 12.0 points per game, shooting under 40 percent from the field and under 30 percent from beyond the arc.

Any team is going to look good when one of their players is dropping 40 with a true shooting percentage pushing 100 but given how much Oubre has struggled to this point, it’s unsurprising that his best game as a Warrior was also one of the team’s best performances of the year.

The Warriors beat the Mavericks by 31, tied for their biggest win of the season. It was their best game of the year by field goal percentage and their second-best by 3-point percentage. Golden State’s other 31-point win this season, a thrashing of the Sacramento Kings, was the only performance in which they made a higher percentage of their 3s and it came in a game where Oubre Jr. finished with 18 points on just 13 shots, including 4-of-6 from beyond the arc.

Why is Kelly Oubre Jr. so important to the Golden State Warriors’ ceiling?

The Warriors are in the process of a fairly dramatic change this season. They have Stephen Curry back in the lineup but without Klay Thompson. Curry is playing far more on the ball than he did when Kevin Durant was still on the team, a role he didn’t really get a chance to smoothly adjust to in last year’s interrupted and injury-plagued season. James Wiseman’s post gravity is something the Warriors haven’t had in several seasons either and forces some shifts in their offensive geometry.

Curry and Draymond Green are still savvy and skilled enough to create efficient offense out of this adapted context but that’s all easier the more distraction the other offensive players can provide. Oubre Jr.’s minutes have been very closely linked with Curry’s — more than 80 percent of his minutes have come alongside Curry — and if he’s not attracting defensive attention as a spot-up shooter or active cutter, it’s one more defender who can just focus in on the dynamics of Draymond and Curry.

You can see it in the progression of offensive possessions in last night’s game. The Mavericks started by giving Oubre Jr. plenty of space on the perimeter early in the game. He was aggressive, using the space to build up speed and attack the basket for a layup, then knocking down a pair of 3-pointers. Once he showed that aggression off the dribble and accuracy from behind the arc, the Mavericks had to tighten up a bit. There was more space available for everyone as the defense was sent through a cascade of defensive rotations.

The win over the Mavericks was Golden State’s second-highest assist total (37) for the season but that’s what happens when people are making shots. In this case, a better measure of the process and frequency of ball movement was elevated is looking at related measures. Against the Mavericks, they racked up 53 potential assists (assists as well as passes that would have been an assist if the shot was made) and 8 secondary assists (passes that led directly to an assist). Those were significant jumps over their season-long averages of 49.3 and 4.1, respectively.

The Warriors don’t need Kelly Oubre Jr. to drop 40 and do a Klay Thompson impression from beyond the arc every game in order to hit their ceiling. But they do need him to be a viable offensive threat, both for the ways it buoys their efficiency and gives the defense as many things as possible to worry about on each possession. For one game, at least, he completely delivered.

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