What Santos learned about shooting from watching Steph, Klay originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
As Gui Santos earns more minutes in coach Steve Kerr’s rotation, the young Warriors forward finds himself sharing a court with Steph Curry more often than ever.
It’s an opportunity to play alongside the greatest shooter of all time, and Santos is taking advantage of every minute. And he soaked up everything he could when Curry’s fellow Splash Brother, Klay Thompson, was still on the team.
“I’m the guy that likes to watch,” Santos told reporters after Saturday’s practice. “So, I’ve always been watching how [Curry] shoots — the movement, the footwork and all the little details that you see. I’m a guy that likes to watch it, especially like last year, Klay was here, too. So there was another guy that I was always watching to see how he moves without the ball to get set, to shoot the ball, because the shot begins before you shoot the ball. How you set up your body before you get the ball.
“So with these guys, you can learn a lot.”
Santos, 22, was playing on a non-guaranteed contract until the Warriors chose to keep him on board and fully guarantee his deal at the Jan. 7 deadline. Up to that point of the 2024-25 NBA season, Santos had appeared in 11 NBA games for a total of 59 minutes.
He now has appeared in 24 games and played at least 19 minutes in eight of the Warriors’ last nine games. And last season with Thompson on the team, Santos spent plenty of time on court with the Splash Bros during his 23 games in the NBA.
And between the two sharpshooters, Santos noticed a key technique he tries to emulate.
“One thing that I see they do a lot is to keep the hands up after they shoot,” Santos said. “So, every time they shoot, they keep the hands up. Of course for Steph, it’s kind of different because he has way more different, way more hard shots than what I have. So he doesn’t have these every time, but every time that Steph has a wide-open shot, you can see he’s shooting, and he keeps the hand straight.”
Santos recently recorded a career-high 19 points in the Warriors’ 131-106 win over the Chicago Bulls on 7-of-10 shooting and 5 of 6 from 3-point range. While his shooting has slowed down in recent games, it’s clear Santos’ watchful eye is starting to pay off.
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