RICOH COLISEUM, TORONTO, ON — The NBA All-Stars and the Golden State Warriors‘ three representatives — Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and Draymond Green — took part in Saturday morning’s practice at a smaller venue, the Ricoh Coliseum, home of the American Hockey League’s Toronto Marlies.
The festivities started with a performance from Red Panda, who seems to be making a killing with her kick-dishes-onto-my-head-while-riding-a-unicycle routine. I saw her yesterday night at the Celebrity Game, too.
First, the Eastern Conference All-Stars got together and did their “practice”. It was a tad weird seeing Cleveland Cavaliers new head coach Tyronne Lue mic’d up and leading the session, although he would have been there anyways had the Cavs not fired David Blatt less than a month ago, since Cleveland had the best record in the East regardless (the Atlanta Hawks‘ Mike Budenholzer and his staff led the East last year).
After they were done, the Western Conference All-Stars finally trotted onto the court.
Curry wore a red headband, which automatically set back his look by about a decade-and-a-half, effectively negating the “mature” look of the goatee. So, 27 minus 15 — you do the math!
We did a poll on Twitter and the results were a resounding “nay”:
Let's make it more official. What did you think of #StephenCurry's headband this morning? https://t.co/4yBbcknzPu
— LetsGoWarriors (@LetsGoWarriors) February 14, 2016
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As for Thompson and Green, #DubNation was certainly proud to see a total of three Warriors running up and down the court, doing fast break weaves and what not.
The drill involving lefty floaters from the baseline was on the more difficult side, though, as Klay was seen airballing his, but then again a lot of the world’s best basketball players had trouble with that one — probably a ploy by West head coach Gregg Popovich all along!
At one point, the big men and the guards engaged in a halfcourt contest. Curry hit two of them and the bigs had to answer to force a tiebreaker at 4-4.
Unbeknownst to many, Steph actually hit three because he made this one, which I happened to catch on our Snapchat “letsgowarriors”, prior to the contest starting:
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However, Green eventually won the contest with this floater from 47 feet:
.@Money23Green is money from halfcourt! #NBAAllStarTO pic.twitter.com/JwDCIwFtM4
— NBA TV (@NBATV) February 13, 2016
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Here’s the full contest:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcAoVbtfWIA&w=560&h=315]Curry was very generous with his autographs, at one point stopping by the bench to sign for kids. Later, a ballboy asked him to sign his standard-issue grey All-Star volunteer cap and Steph obliged. Seeing the success, the ballboy’s co-worker, another boy about ten years old or so, then did the same and Steph signed that one, too.
This guy is a true role model. Love how he always makes time! #DubNation #RoleModel @LetsGoWarriors @warriors pic.twitter.com/1okUDTJOOO
— Richard Anderson (@rchyrch) February 14, 2016
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When the event was done, NBA staff gave all the players red mini-basketballs to throw out to the crowd. Curry still had the Sharpie from signing the ballboys’ caps, so he used it to sign a couple of the mini-balls before launching them into the masses.
At the post-practice media scrums, Curry was once again the center of attention, with a bevy of reporters many rows deep:
The word "scrum" is so apropos. As in, #StephenCurry is like THE football lol. #LetsGoWarriorsLive #NBAAllStarTO pic.twitter.com/X3kzS5xDdu
— LetsGoWarriors (@LetsGoWarriors) February 13, 2016
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It got so bad, at one point, a cameraman set up a chair with those chrome heavy-metal bars on which he could stand from afar to film Curry. Only problem was, when a Chinese reporter turned around after interviewing Steph to go rush over to Kobe Bryant, she hit her knee on one of the chair’s square metal pipes, screamed, and collapsed to the floor.
Her phone, glasses, and high heels went careening every which way. I picked up her glasses for her and other reporters helped her gather her bearings.
She was okay, though, and eventually trooped on over to Bryant.
Meanwhile, Green answered more of the same fodder, although one question in particular was difficult to understand. Draymond eventually figured out that the foreign reporter with a heavy accent was asking if the Warriors were a “perfect family”:
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ba1l4wRaygA&w=560&h=315]“No family’s perfect,” Green replied.
Not even the NBA media family, it seems.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jppp1O1zF3Y&w=420&h=315](Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @nba)
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