De'Anthony Melton opened the season with a quiet line and a loud question attached to it. He went scoreless Wednesday as the Golden State Warriors fell into their season opener against the Los Angeles Lakers at Crypto.com Arena, finishing with two rebounds and two assists in 21 minutes.
That matters now because Golden State did not just bring Melton back. The Warriors prioritized a reunion with him over trying to land Anfernee Simons in free agency, betting that Melton would help steady the perimeter while Jimmy Butler remains sidelined. Instead, Melton needed two field-goal attempts to finish with no points, and the start came after a preseason in which he shot 26.9% from the floor and 25% from 3-point range across five games.
The numbers stretch beyond one night. Dating back to the start of preseason, Melton has scored 26 total points in six games across 112 minutes, and the pattern has been hard to miss. His role was even larger on Wednesday because Brandin Podziemski was absent, which pushed Melton back into the starting lineup and gave him a chance to set the tone early.
Instead, the night turned in the second quarter when Melton lost the ball on a coast-to-coast transition attempt and Steve Kerr reacted with an enraged timeout. It was the kind of possession that captured the uneasy part of the Warriors' start: the team is looking for offense, but the player it chose over another target has not yet looked comfortable generating it. Melton had also scaled up into a bigger role late last season, when his efficiency fell off, so Wednesday's opener fit an unflattering pattern rather than interrupting it.
Brandin Podziemski is expected back later in the week, and that will tell the next part of the story. If Melton keeps struggling, his minutes could shrink quickly, and the Warriors will have to decide how long they want to keep trusting a reunion that has not yet produced much back.
