Golden State Warriors: Ranking every member of the team’s bench

9. Jacob Evans III

Warriors fans got to see Jacob Evans across 30 different games last season, but most of it came in garbage time.

It wasn’t especially pretty. He put up per-game averages of 1.3 points, 0.8 rebounds, and 0.8 assists while only shooting 36.8% from the field. The good news is that he shouldn’t be quite that bad again.

But accepting a reality where the Warriors will have to somewhat lean on Evans to take on the role of a departed Shaun Livingston is daunting.

Coach Kerr made the decision early-on that Evans would transition from shooting guard to backup point guard. Of course, some of those responsibilities fall onto D’Angelo Russell, who is more than capable of running the point himself.

Still, the expectations are relatively high for a player that didn’t have an especially impressive rookie campaign.

There are other options off the bench to take on the third-string point guard role if need be. But they’ll be less conventional and could add to the list of areas that the Warriors will need to address at some point.

There are some positives that come with Evans, even if fans were justifiably critical of his performance last season.

As part of the change to point guard, Evans has reportedly worked on his jump-shot, which was virtually nonexistent last season. A little more consistency in his shooting should help him relax on defense, where he showed to be a plus last year.

We’ve seen, in an admittedly very small sample size, that Evans’ shot is falling at a higher rate.

During the preseason, Evans put up 6.4 points, 2.4 rebounds, and 2.0 assists a game. Most impressively, he shot 50% from three on eight shots.

Again, it’s a very, very small sample size, but it hopefully indicates that Evans is at least making strides to do something on the offensive end.

The likelihood is that Evans won’t be in any most improved player discussions this year, but any improvements he makes this year will alleviate some of the pressure from the rest of the starters.

He won’t be Shaun Livingston, but if he can come close to Quinn Cook, it’ll be a huge win for the Warriors.