Back in May, I wrote that bringing DeAnthony Melton back was essential for the Warriors’ 2025-26 season. The response was predictable: “He’s coming off an ACL tear,” “He’s 27 and might never be the same,” “The Warriors need to move on.” But here we are in January 2026, and Melton isn’t just back—he’s having a solid year, and the numbers tell a story of perseverance that deserves way more attention than it’s getting.
Let’s rewind to November 2024. Melton was cooking. Nineteen points and 10 rebounds against OKC, drilling five threes and looking like the perfect complement to Steph Curry’s brilliance. Two nights later against Dallas, he dropped 14 points in 26 minutes, helping the Warriors take down a legitimate contender. Steve Kerr had finally cracked the rotation code, calling Melton “really the perfect mix” of shooting and defensive versatility. Then, in that same Dallas game, his knee twisted, his ACL tore, and the season collapsed before it ever really started. Even in his injury absence, it was clear that the Warriors should bring him back over the summer.
Fast forward to January 2026, and Melton is back and not just surviving his return from major knee surgery. After an up-and-down December, he’s thriving in ways that make February look very appetizing for the Warriors.
In December, Melton shot 32.9% from the field and a ghastly 16.7% from three. His effective field goal percentage sat at .368, the kind of number that gets you benched or buried. He looked like a player still searching for his rhythm, still fighting through the mental hurdles that come with trusting a surgically repaired knee.
Then January happened and his stats were night and day. His field goal percentage jumped to 48.3%, which is a 47% improvement. His three-point accuracy exploded from 16.7% to 37.3%, more than doubling his efficiency. His effective field goal percentage skyrocketed to 56.9%, a leap that signaled he was attacking with confidence. He went from making 6 threes in December to 25 in January. His assists quadrupled from 12 to 44. This wasn’t just regression to the mean; this was a player rediscovering who he is.
By month’s end, Melton had become the Warriors’ third-leading scorer at 14.7 PPG, trailing only Curry and Jimmy Butler. He posted the team’s highest plus-minus for January at +10.3. He was second on the team in paint points with 88—just six behind Butler—and 46% of his scoring came in the restricted area, a higher rate than Gui Santos, Brandin Podziemski, Draymond Green, and Quinten Post. He wasn’t just spotting up for threes; he was attacking closeouts, finishing through contact, and playing with the two-way aggression that made him so valuable before the injury.
At 27 years old, Melton is posting career-high numbers (11.7 PPG on the season) and evolving into a legitimate two-way weapon. He’s not a role player filling minutes, instead he’s a core rotation piece that the Warriors can’t afford to lose again. The December struggles? Those were the final stages of a player rebuilding trust in his body. January was him remembering he belongs.
I said it in May: the Warriors needed to bring Melton back. They did. And now, watching him transform from December’s cautious comeback player to January’s confident two-way force, it’s clear this wasn’t just a good signing. It was essential. The ACL injury in November 2024 derailed what could’ve been a special season. But Melton’s January 2026 performance proves he’s not coming back from injury; he’s arriving as the player the Warriors always needed him to be.
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