LOS ANGELES — Much has changed for JaVale McGee in six months. Half a year removed from being a valued role player on an NBA champion, he is struggling to find consistent minutes.
As the league trends toward small-ball lineups, head coach Steve Kerr has less use for McGee, a 7-foot, 270-pound center whose best skills — running the floor, throwing down alley-oops, swatting shots — are maximized against towering frontcourts. Now, McGee stays late after practices, works on defending guards and forwards, and hopes that his efforts will be rewarded with a regular spot in the rotation.
“I’m just staying professional and trying to get better at the situations where they’re going small,” McGee said after practice Monday at Staples Center. “In the near future, hopefully, I’ll be able to be out there in those situations. I’m just here being patient.”
McGee, 29, is averaging a career-worst 7.9 minutes per game. With Kevon Looney and Jordan Bell emerging as small-ball centers capable of guarding multiple positions off screens, Kerr has left McGee to toil on the bench. He hasn’t topped the eight-minute mark in eight of Golden State’s past 10 games.
It is a far cry from his breakthrough 2016-17 season, in which McGee’s huge wingspan and vertical leap made him the ideal change-of-pace option off the bench at a position rounded out by the more ground-bound Zaza Pachulia and David West. McGee took more than 300 shots for the first time since the 2012-13 season, and his 65.2 percent shooting from the field was a career high.
“Things have not gone JaVale’s way this season,” Kerr said. “I think JaVale’s been really good as far as understanding things haven’t gone his way, and staying with it. He works hard in practice. I tell him all the time, ‘Things will turn. They always do.’”
McGee is well-versed on adversity. When he joined the Warriors in September 2016 as a nonguaranteed training-camp invitee, his NBA career was on life support. A slow-healing leg injury had limited him to 62 games over his previous three seasons. Four years removed from signing a four-year, $44 million deal with the Nuggets, McGee was known more for his blooper reel than his skills.
Such experiences have helped him keep his dwindling playing time in perspective. There are worse situations than getting paid $2.1 million to sit on the bench for a championship contender.
“You have to think about the dynamics,” McGee said. “We’re going to the playoffs every year. We’re going to go to the Finals most likely. You just have to realize that it’s a great spot to be in, to be with a Finals-contending team in any way, shape or form.”
Connor Letourneau is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cletourneau@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @Con_Chron