Thompson: Kelly Oubre Jr.’s turnaround and his chance to finally find a home

Kelly Oubre Jr. is looking for home.

He’s been searching for the better part of the last 15 years, since Hurricane Katrina took his home. He’s bounced around so much in his life, he’d gotten used to transition. It’s probably why Oubre has the swag of a cultured sojourner, one who’s been many places, seen many things, and kept little pieces of the journey. His style and intellect bolstered by each experience.

But please understand, inside the Warriors’ swingman is the most basic of yearnings. Home. Not a house. He can buy many of those. But a place where he can put his heart on the mantel and get comfortable. A place where he can continue growing in his career with peace of mind, take his time molding his game while being part of something special. A place where he can headquarter his creativity and passion, infuse himself fully into the community. A home. Oubre may look like a rolling stone. But even dope souls want to settle down. He is 25 now. He is engaged to be married. The quest to find soil worthy of roots intensified.

The problem for Oubre was that such a longing ran counter to his basketball qi. He saw the Warriors as the opportunity for a home. After being traded to the Warriors, following the Suns giving up on him, this was his chance. How many more of these would he get after Washington and Phoenix? Plus this was the Warriors, the place where a championship was possible. And they made the greatest gesture of value by signing him to a $14 million deal that was going to cost the team more than four-fold in taxes.

“When I first got here, to the Warriors, I was feeding into all the pressure of, the salary-cap stuff, the contract year,” Oubre said. “You know, the new team that I would really love to make this a home for me in the future. I was kind of putting too much pressure onto myself.”

The irony. He almost lost his home trying so hard to secure it.

But in one of the most epic turnarounds in recent Warriors memory, he might have saved it. By letting go.

Letting go of the pressure to seize the opportunity. Letting go of his comfort zone of being a free spirit and instead figuring out how to be on this team. Letting go of the strings he was holding in his attempt to control everything. That allowed him to find the inward strength he’s been relying on all this time.

The results have been spectacular, enough to sway an entire region that was ready to cast him elsewhere. Oubre went from ashy to classy almost instantaneously.

In the 20 games over December and January, he averaged 12 points on 37 percent shooting with 5.6 rebounds and a total of 25 assists. He was 2-for-30 from 3 over his first six games shot just 22.8 percent from deep in those 20 games.

Contrast that with his 15 games in February: 20.1 points on 50.2 percent shooting — 43 percent from 3 — with 6.4 rebounds and 24 total assists.

But it’s more than the numbers can convey. There was something inspirational about the way Oubre transfigured from regrettable to reliable. There was something about how Oubre at his best helped ascend the entire team, as much as his worst descended it, that spoke to an intangible impact. Perhaps for the first time in his career, his play was impacting winning. He’d dug in, adapted to Golden State and started looking like a keeper. In the process, he may have found home.

“I think what’s impressed me the most — No. 1 just the fight in him,” Draymond Green said. “I’ve enjoyed playing with him. He brings a certain passion, intensity and toughness to the floor. And it’s always fun playing with a guy that plays that style of basketball.

“Most important is the resiliency,” Green continued. “Living in the day and age of a lot of kids pointing the finger at the next guy, thinking they’re better than what they really are — a lot of young guys do that — he didn’t point the finger at anyone. So the resiliency that he’s shown has impressed me more than anything.”

Oubre now looks like the ultimate sixth man for next year’s Warriors when Klay Thompson returns. He looks like perfect insurance in case Thompson needs to be eased back in after missing two consecutive seasons with major injuries. He will be expensive. They could potentially sell high, while he’s rolling, but such would be a major shift in the franchise’s approach to Oubre. They’ve been treating him like a guy they want around and not like a trade chip they plan to harvest. The answer will be clear by the March 25 trade deadline because, after that, the Warriors can’t really replace him and would essentially be better off keeping him.

The fact that this is a tough choice is a testament to Oubre’s fortitude. It wasn’t so much that Oubre righted the ship on his game. That was bound to happen. He simply wasn’t as bad a player as he was showing. But the impressive part is how fast he’s gotten himself back to level. Basically, a month.

He begins the second half of this truncated season having almost fully recovered from the worst stretch of his career — also in consideration, he said, was his first season in 2015-16, when Wizards coach Randy Wittman’s anti-rookie tendencies had him glued to the bench — and playing at optimal levels for the Warriors. His season averages are still shy of the 18.7 points on 45.2 percent shooting and 35.2 percent from 3 he put up in Phoenix last season. But he could come back to earth a bit from his February numbers and still finish in that same realm.

The turnaround took some significant measures.

“I think what’s impressed me the most — No. 1 just the fight in him,” Draymond Green says of Kelly Oubre Jr. “I’ve enjoyed playing with him.” (Nell Redmond / USA Today)

He started a social media blackout. He was already relatively inactive on Instagram and Twitter, seemingly his preferred apps. He has two posts since the season began, both on Twitter, one after the blowout in the opener declaring “Only up from here” and an endorsement tweet. But he also said he got “off social media.” It was the smart move after the first few games of the season, when most everyone in Warriors world had him coming off the bench or getting traded for Girl Scout cookies. Two boxes of Samoas, two boxes of Tagalongs and some Thin Mints out of the freezer would’ve done the trick for most Warriors fans.

Oubre’s trainer, Drew Hanlen, came out to the Bay for a couple of weeks to work on his game. His father and his fiancee occupied his mental space, so he could vacate it and get out of his own way.

“I just simplified everything going on around me, the noise,” he said. “I was actually in the gym a lot when I was going through that rough start. Still am now. But I was still doing a lot of overtime.

“When I got out of my head and I just put my focus and my energy into my craft and everything that was most important to me in my life, I think that’s when I knew I turned the corner. But I know for a fact it’s still a work in progress because I dig myself into a pretty solid hole that I’m still digging myself out of. But at the end of the day, it was a test, and I’m still not taking anything for granted.”

It was especially necessary when Oubre wound up in trade rumors, reportedly being considered in a trade to New Orleans. You can imagine how that hit, the desperation of being faced with another new place, another new team, another transition. The pressure resurfaced. The strings of control wrapped back around his hands. Oubre thought Phoenix would be where he finished his career, and he ended up being traded to Oklahoma City and then the Warriors in a one-week span. Now he was trying to make San Francisco his home and already he was in trade rumors.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr had a conversation with Oubre, reassured him of the team’s plans for him, freeing Oubre to once again let go. Steph Curry, Green, the coaches kept reminding him why he’s with the Warriors and how much they like him. Plus, he got constant support from his inner circle, who knows he’s an emotional person who needs the right mentality to thrive.

“Everybody pretty much just continuously gave me reassuring affirmations that I am this person,” he said. “I’m so blessed to have those people in my life, man. Because it’s all about the supporting cast. I think the guys who allow things to break them are the people who don’t really have strong individuals around them. And that’s not something that I could say about myself. I have the strongest people around me.”

The day after the reports, and his talk with Kerr, he had 20 points on nine shots with nine rebounds against Minnesota on Jan. 27. He seemed motivated.

Then he laid a complete egg in his return to Phoenix: four points, 1-for-11 shooting, 0-for-5 from 3, four rebounds in 25 minutes. Those Tagalongs were looking really nice again.

But it finally clicked in Dallas a week later, a blowout win in which he had 40 points on 14-for-21 shooting. He finally got hot, knocking down seven 3-pointers and completely dominating the Mavericks, unleashing all that pent-up frustration. He hasn’t really looked back since. That was the first of a 14-game stretch heading into the All-Star break (he missed the last two games). He has at least 17 points in 10 of those games. He shot at least 40 percent from three in eight of those games. Grabbed at least eight rebounds in six of those games.

Oubre letting go included his understanding of how he played the game. Working in an offense with Curry is tough. When it’s said how much Curry changed the game with his shooting, it’s normally a reference to how it warps the floor and the defense. But it’s not usually considered how much that also affects offensive paradigms. Players like Oubre have gotten to this point by wielding their athletic talents a certain way. Their years of indoctrination have produced instincts that tend to clash with how the Warriors’ offense revolves around Curry.