[NOTE: I’ll post the Beijing and Shanghai trips shortly. As you can tell by our Instagram account, I was fairly busy during the trip itself! This post is obviously coming to you after Opening Night, but I don’t think it matters, as it’s more of an inside look at the Warriors practices. The following should get you caught up on the early season…]
SATURDAY 10/26/2013
So I got back on the U.S. mainland on Friday, October 25th (after a brief stop at my ancestral home of Guilin, China following my Shanghai, jetlagged, and the next Golden State Warriors practice was scheduled for the following morning. I landed late at night in San Jose (note to all travelers: land in SJC, not SFO, if you have the chance), so I was a wearied soul when I arrived at the Warriors facility in Oakland.
Instead of having a Fan Fest at Oracle, the franchise decided to have it streamed via Google Hangouts. I wasn’t privy to the “fest” itself, as they made an event out of it for a select group (of about 50 maybe?) and called it “Family Day”, but then again due to the travel the previous night, I don’t think I would’ve made it on time anyways.
As I walked in, people were lining up for autographs from every Warrior. Ognjen Kuzmic still had his rookie-hazing Hello Kitty backpack nearby (perhaps a far worse predicament than Nemanja Nedovic‘s One Direction gear? — not that I know anything about that!).
Incidentally, Sarah Todd has all the details of the event here.
After several minutes, Nedovic approached the interview chair. He was his usual calm self, partly attributed to his language barrier, although his English is indeed very good. He rather matter-of-factly said his singing performance would make him a “YouTube sensation” and described his move against the Portland Trailblazers the night before, the one where he hurt is tailbone (he’ll be fine, he said), as “good”.
After Nedo was Coach Mark Jackson. There was some joking about his mic not working during the event, but I had no idea what they were talking about because I had missed it. Apparently, Andrew Bogut had won the Three-Point Shootout and Jackson kidded that an inbounds play for him should be implemented, now that he could call the shots with the big contract (Bogut was signed to a potentially hefty extension only days prior).
One thing curious about Jackson’s talk was that he said leading up to Opening Night five days away, he needed to reiterate everyone’s roles. As someone who has talked to Jermaine O’Neal extensively about roles, I found that rather surprising. My guess is that, because preseason involved a lot of minutes for players who would otherwise come off the bench later than in preseason or possibly not at all, Jackson just wanted to make sure everything was reset at regular season mode. (Note: I spoke later with O’Neal about this and he gave me the inside scoop.)
The team did not practice on Sunday.
MONDAY 10/28/2013
On Monday I walked into practice and Festus Ezeli could be seen in the corner riding the elliptical while feigning shooting jumpshots.
Jackson was first in the interview chair, as usual. One of the columnists (as opposed to regular beatwriters) was there and I noticed that he was asking some questions in a manner in which, if he had been to several other practices, he would have already known the answer or could have rephrased the question in a manner of expecting the same answer we’ve been getting for awhile. But that’s probably to be expected.
On Stephen Curry, Jackson said, “It’s important for him to take care of the basketball, because he’s the one that sets the tone for us.” As we know by now, Curry would struggle with that very thing on Thursday at the Los Angeles Clippers.
Meanwhile, Steph was having his usual post-practice shootaround. The Warriors would have a luncheon with the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce in just a couple of hours, so when approached by Warriors PR staff to come and do the interview, you could tell that he wasn’t exactly thrilled about it, but true to his polished PR form, posed no objection.
Steph was asked about his great 2nd half of the season last year, if it was that he was hot and if he could extend that over an entire season. “I guess I was hot for a long time,” he responded, as the word “hot” in basketball vernacular usually comes with the assumption that the streak of great oncourt play is short-lived.
PR staff had to break up the interview due to the tight schedule and as Steph bounded from the chair, he joked that he had to “go kiss some babies”. So while the talk started reluctantly, he ended it on a comedic note.
On Tuesday we were let in to the gym as the team was finishing up scrimmages. It ended quickly and the team convened with the usual, “Just us!” break of the huddle.
Andrew Bogut was practicing free throws and I noticed that about half of them looked really bad, in terms of the form, and half looked good. The shot doctor in me still thinks that he releases the ball too late after the bend of the knee and propulsion of the body into shooting motion, if you will. In short, it doesn’t look fluid. It would if he let go of the ball a split-second earlier.
Iguodala said that the Warriors have “an advantage” because by the end of the year, the team should be really good. When asked about the passing of his teammates, he mentioned Andre Miller and… (drumroll) Chris Webber! He also said with the Philadelphia 76ers, great defense with that team was “a must” whereas the Warriors have offensive talent to get the defense going. He also said he loves feeding the ball to Klay Thompson and that Klay’s his “favorite player”.
Klay happened to be next and, sure enough, he did the interview with a basketball in his hands. He probably sleeps with it. Klay mentioned that he got his first alley oop fed from Iguodala, and said that he talks to Jerry West frequently about “a lot of things”.
WEDNESDAY 10/30/2013
I went into Wednesday’s shootaround excited about the game and with Marreese Speights‘s tweets showing excitement as well, I hoped to find out about any similar excitement especially from the newer players. But only David Lee would talk to media. Unfortunately, Jackson wasn’t available.
One good piece of news was that I saw Harrison Barnes shooting jumpshots with Draymond Green, taking turns receiving passes from a Warriors trainer. While small, that was a step in the right direction, up from the standard of free throws only from what I had seen in the past few practices. Plus, he was wearing the second string’s blue jersey as opposed to the t-shirt.
I asked him about the new guys having excitement about Oracle, but true to veteran professionalism, he deflected it and predictably said that the team can’t rely on that for Opening Night.
When asked if the assumption that Lee’s proven offensive prowess and new focus on defense would result in a decline of his offensive results, he jokingly replied, “I’m not giving the game that much thought, man.” Similar to when Steph leapt of the chair to the locker room, as Lee bounded off the chair to the locker, he threw in a quip mimicking himself audibly thinking out loud while in a game. I couldn’t hear it, but it drew laughter from the media. The Warriors veterans are particularly good at the jockeying that sometimes goes on between the press and players.
Before the game that night against the Los Angeles Lakers featured a nice little shootaround session with Steph Curry, in which he displayed an array of moves as well as a rarely seen post up maneuver. I took some clips and posted them on our LetsGoWarriors Instagram. I saw him up close in Beijing and there’s probably an article due to talk about the little things that Steph does that helps him be a great player.
As I left the practice facility, I randomly looked outside and noticed that one could see the future SF arena location from here.
The Warriors would play the Lakers that night, fly to LA to play the Los Angeles Clippers the next night on Thursday, and take the day off on Friday. And here we are on Saturday. I was unable to attend shootaround today.
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