{"id":693484,"date":"2026-04-02T08:10:18","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T08:10:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/693484\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T08:10:18","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T08:10:18","slug":"why-a-righthanded-warrior-malevy-leons-shot-free-throws-with-his-left","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/693484\/","title":{"rendered":"Why a righthanded Warrior Malevy Leons shot free throws with his left"},"content":{"rendered":"

SAN FRANCISCO \u2013 Malevy Leons stepped to the free throw line with 2:13 remaining in the first quarter of Wednesday\u2019s loss to the Spurs<\/a>, ready to do something he had practiced thousands of times before in his basketball life, the same way as he had always done it.<\/p>\n

Well, not quite the exact same way.<\/p>\n

The natural righthander awkwardly cradled the ball with his left hand before flinging it toward the rim.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Nursing an injured right wrist, the two-way center was not going to let such an injury stop him from playing valuable minutes on an injury-riddled team with only nine active players and a dearth of options at center.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s alright just don\u2019t have like full mobility,\u201d the 6-foot-9 Leons said. \u201cSo I\u2019ve been just like trying to find different ways to work around it. Yeah one of the things is left-handed free throws, been working on it with coach Mark (Tollefsen). I made one today.\u201d<\/p>\n

Indeed he did.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Leons stepped up to the line in the fourth quarter, he actually managed to split a pair of attempts after battling with Victor Wembanyama and the Spurs\u2019 uber-athletic front line all night.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cJust trying to aim at the basket and hope and pray that it goes in,\u201d Leons said.<\/p>\n

Leons has been dealing with his compromised wrist since Mar. 20, when he injured it in Detroit. His grit and toughness since then has left coach Steve Kerr impressed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cSo every day at practice he\u2019s shooting left handed free throws,\u201d Kerr said, adding that during the Dallas game a few weeks ago, Leons asked the Warriors to adjust a play so he could make the pass with his left hand.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"SanSan Antonio Spurs’ Victor Wembanyama (1) raises his hand to get the ball as Golden State Warriors’ Malevy Leons (33) in the second quarter of an NBA game at Chase Center in San Francisco, Calif., on Wednesday, April 1, 2026. (Ray Chavez\/Bay Area News Group)\u00a0<\/p>\n

It was the kind of effort that made teammate Seth Curry, a career 86% free throw shooter, an admirer too.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m probably one of the worst lefthanded shooters you\u2019ll see, so if I was in, I probably would have had to go and underhanded it,\u201d Curry said. \u201cIt was impressive seeing him going out there, and not be ashamed or afraid, and trying stuff out and trying to be available.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leons, 26, has played in 20 games for the Warriors this season. Though highly-limited as a scorer, he has carved out a role for himself as an active defender and willing passer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like every player on a two-way contract, Leons is fighting to show that he deserves to stay in the league.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Even if he could not shoot or pass with his dominant hand, Leons needed to be out there. And with one good hand, Leons still put up five points, four rebounds, five assists and two steals.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just an opportunity to show what I can do and provide for the team,\u201d Leons said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"SAN FRANCISCO \u2013 Malevy Leons stepped to the free throw line with 2:13 remaining in the first quarter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":693485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3786],"tags":[7,159,160,479,164,4025,4024,155,165,6,161,162,163,66,255,158],"class_list":{"0":"post-693484","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-golden-state-warriors","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-bay-area","10":"tag-california","11":"tag-golden-state","12":"tag-golden-state-warriors","13":"tag-goldenstate","14":"tag-goldenstatewarriors","15":"tag-inside-sports","16":"tag-latest-headlines","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-peninsula","19":"tag-san-francisco","20":"tag-san-francisco-county","21":"tag-sports","22":"tag-warriors","23":"tag-warriors-hq"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116334103526909475","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693484","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693484"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693484\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/693485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693484"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693484"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693484"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}