The Warriors lost a close game the Clippers on Wednesday night, but the news wasn’t all bad. Forward Andrew Wiggins had a 19-point game, the team played quality defense, and second-year forward Eric Paschall had a 19-point performance of his own.
Though it must be said, star guard Stephen Curry was locked up by the Clippers, scoring just 13 points and tweaking his ankle in the process (the ankle is okay per coach Steve Kerr). But moving right along.
Paschall scored his points on 7 for 14 shooting, and he added three rebounds and an assist all in just 20 minutes. The NBC Sports Bay Area telecast pointed out that the all-rookie player from a year ago is shooting just above 62 percent on 2-point shots this season. That’s an astounding number. Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle certainly noticed that and more, comparing Paschall to NBA Hall of Fame player Adrian Dantley.
Here’s a comp for Paschall, and you kids will have to go to YouTube to see if you agree: Adrian Dantley. Not big, not fast, can’t jump much, but has 55 ways to score (as they say) the basketball. And both shoot shots that are heavy, die on the rim and slop in.
Scott Ostler/San Francisco Chronicle
Dantley is certainly a name I’ve heard, but he’s even before my time by a bit. While I had to go to YouTube as suggested, it’s nice to be considered a kid by someone. I can see what Ostler is talking about. Check out the highlight package below, which opens with the question: who is the best isolation scorer ever? And then starts with footage of Michael Jordan as a warm up for the Dantley highlights. Wild. So what do yo think? Is there a resemblance?
I can see the part about the heavy shot, and they also appear similar when going to the rim at times. Check Dantley finish over Kareem Abdul-Jabbar at about 9:30 into the video. They’re roughly the same height at around 6-foot-5, but Pachall’s playing weight is 255 compared to 208 for Dantley.
But bottom line, this is some seriously lofty praise. Dantley held a scoring average of more than 30 points a game for four consecutive years, starting when he led the league with 30.7 points per game for the Jazz in 1980-81. He led the NBA again with a 30.6 scoring average during the 1983-84 campaign.
But Paschal has shown to be a scoring machine thus far. Who’s to say he couldn’t score more than 20 points per game on another NBA team? He’s on the Warriors however, and he’s seems to have found a role as a scorer off the bench, especially as a center in a small ball lineup. Golden State has to continue to find a role for this dynamic young player.
And plus he’s old school, which I personally like, with his superior ability inside the arch. Dantley’s 3-point game was virtually nonexistent, but he still racked up points with the best of them. Paschell would do well to take note and continue to hit more than 60 percent of his 2-point buckets, adding a twist to the Golden State rotation.
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