The Golden State Warriors watched beloved franchise wing and future Hall-of-Famer Klay Thompson walk in free agency this past offseason, the same man who helped the team win four championships across a fruitful 13-year tenure. It was tough, but it is what it is and there’s no point in dwelling in the situation.

The Warriors front office was quick to act in filling the void. Within days, the team signed or acquired multiple players, one of which was veteran sharpshooter Buddy Hield, who they snagged in a sign-and-trade.

Quick side note: The two being the three-point leaders in that stretch is on top of Curry only playing five games in 2019-20, and Hield playing for four different teams and coaches with varying schemes and player preferences.

It was one of those under-the-radar signings that you just knew made a ton of sense. There’s a short list of role players that were clear fits in the Dubs’ system, and Hield is in that all these years, perhaps at the very top. In addition to the record mentioned above, either of the two also ranked first or second in most threes in a season in each of the last six years (2018-19 to 2023-24).

Five games is a small sample size, but he’s definitely building a lot of hope as he has looked really nice.

The 31-year-old is tallying 21.2 points per game on 50% shooting from three with an average of 9.6 attempts. He’s also doing all that in just 24.0 minutes of action per outing, which cranks the crazy up another notch. 

Obviously, it’s bananas and you can’t really expect anyone to maintain such numbers in a full season. Then again, we can’t forget that many have said similar things with the Warriors and Steve Kerr before they blew up, so maybe we can?

Nevertheless, Hield’s early-season surge has been fun to watch, even if it’s one you could see coming miles away. It was not long ago when he was the resident shooter on a mediocre-at-best Sacramento Kings team, then pretty much the same with the Indiana Pacers, and unto the Philadelohia 76ers for half-a-season in 2023-24, where he finally made the playoffs, but was further down the line in hierarchy.

Now, he’s breaking records while on a new team, right after basically staring irrelevance in the face. What’s not to like?

With such play, Hield is helping pump new energy into the franchise, something that consistently dwindled over the last couple of years due to championship fatigue, team turmoil, and front office politics, among others.

While the Curry-Thompson will be impossible to recreate at this point, Hield can be a key piece in aiding the 36-year-old Curry and the passionate Warriors organization and fanbase into making another deep run.