WARRIORS PRACTICE FACILITY, OAKLAND, CA — Another edition of #GSWMediaDay unfolded yesterday, where Golden State Warriors players all returned from their off-season excursions to reconvene the day before training camp begins to meet reporters as well as take pictures and shoot video for various segments to be utilized later in the season.
Stephen Curry “greeted” members of the media at the front door — actually, he was just getting ready to go on-air with Rosalyn Gold-Onwude for NBATV, before being first to head to the podium in the press-conference format.
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
In previous years, the Warriors held simultaneous round-table discussions for every player, even those only with an invite to training camp. This year, with the demand for the champion players, only ten players were made available to media.
As Warriors Vice President of Public Relations, Ray Ridder, who had alerted reporters that the parking garage would have limited access due to another unrelated event, recounted to Daniel Brown of the San Jose Mercury News:
“Ten years ago, I was begging people to come to media day and offering reporters a chance to ride to the event with Mookie Blaylock,” Ridder said, referring to a point guard from a forgettable squad. “Now I’m telling reporters that they can’t even come in their own car.”
ESPN was on the scene providing live coverage this time. So was Comcast Sports Net Bay Area, which did a live, 90-minute special from the event. Sports Illustrated was here to snap cover shots.
As Curry addressed the first question, everyone in the practice facility could hear Draymond Green letting out several primal screams that will be used for video on the jumbotron at Oracle Arena this season.
“As you can tell there is a lot of excitement in the building, so it’s a very fun time,” Curry opened as he answered the opening question about looking forward to this season.
Here are some highlights from the press conferences:
- Curry, when told by a reporter from Sina.com that his fans from China want him to bring his daughter Riley Curry on his next visit, smiled and said, “We’ll see if Riley wants to go. It’s up to her.”
- Warriors’ Stephen Curry looking to add to his MVP game — Jeff Faurado, Bay Area News Group
- Full transcript of Curry interview — ASAP Sports
“So the sixth man the position I don’t have a problem with, but the award, it’s not that it’s not important, but being singled out, it’s like affirmative action or something like that to me. So it’s like whatever.”
When asked if he would help Harrison Barnes and Festus Ezeli‘s contract extension negotiations the way he’d helped Klay Thompson last year, Iguodala quipped, “Festus I’m going to help out a lot. He’s a big man. Doesn’t have those huge numbers being thrown at him, so there can be a huge gap where he gets paid. Harrison’s numbers are so large that it doesn’t really matter. Rich is rich, he’ll be fine, but an extra basket or two could help him. So I hope he’s close when I’m by myself on the break. I’ll be sure to toss it back to him.”
- Iguodala compares Sixth Man award to affirmative action — Dieter Kurtenbach, KNBR.com
- Andre Iguodala says he’s OK with being the Warriors’ Sixth Man — Sam Amick, USA Today
- Warriors’ Andre Iguodala says knees feel good — Faurado
- Warriors’ Iguodala received knee injections in Germany — Monte Poole, CSN Bay Area
- Full transcript of Iguodala interview — ASAP Sports
Green also wouldn’t quite reveal his “most fun” moment of the off-season, but did offer this: “I can tell y’all about everything. I didn’t do nothing crazy. Going to Andre’s wedding was the most fun I’ve had in a long time, so that was pretty amazing. I mean, it was really the first time all of us had been back together since the championship, and it was in Cabo. I had never been to Cabo. We just had a ball.”
And Green also wouldn’t exactly go into detail on whether Curry had kept his promise from the MVP speech of doing better than when Kobe Bryant bought the Los Angeles Lakers watches after winning his. After chiding a reporter for not asking Curry the same question earlier, Green said, “I’m not into throwing anyone under the bus. Maybe y’all can ask Steph that.”
- Draymond Green says NBA title just the beginning for Warriors — Faurado
- Draymond Green says he’ll use next month to get into ‘tip-top’ shape — Rusty Simmons, San Francisco Chronicle
- Draymond Green didn’t want to be in ‘tip-top’ shape to start training camp — Kurtenbach
- Full transcript of Green interview
When Thompson was asked about Iguodala’s comments, Klay took a good six seconds to consider the question. “Uhhhh… Yeah, I don’t think I wore down, to be honest,” Thompson said, grinning. “I thought I was great and very fresh throughout the whole year.”
[NOTE: Thompson’s remarks are at the 1:00 minute mark of the following video…]Kurtenbach found this funny Media Day photo of Thompson:
Klay Thompson is being held against his will: pic.twitter.com/AUvT2zp8u6
— Dieter Kurtenbach (@dkurtenbach) September 29, 2015
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js
- Iguodala says Thompson ‘wore down’ last year; Klay disagrees — Kurtenbach
- Warriors’ Klay Thompson gets to meet a hero (Spencer Stone) — Faurado
- Klay Thompson says Warriors are ‘kind of addicted’ to winning — Simmons
- Full transcript of Thompson interview — ASAP Sports
That was just the first half of the interviews. Be sure to check out our Media Day photo gallery as well as Part Two coming soon, where Green’s yells are book-ended by another teammate’s, and the newest Warrior, the Larry O’Brien trophy gets some love after all the players were gone.
Other recaps:
- Draymond Green on NBA champs: “We’re still hungry” — Steve Berman, Bay Area Sports Guy
- Warriors, Curry are back, confident they’ll defend title — Ann Killion, San Francisco Chronicle
- Warriors expect success, but some play underdog card — Simmons
- Defending champion Warriors return to work — Josh Dubow, Associated Press
- Warriors embrace challenge of defending title: ‘We’re the champs’ — Poole
- Curry says Warriors still team to beat — Diamond Leung, Bay Area News Group
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
