Kerr season kickoff: Iguodala, Wiseman, Steph Curry, Klay, zig-zag of NBA’s tall teams
[notes/quotes/video]
The Golden State Warriors kicked off the season today with interviews from Steve Kerr and Bob Myers. The notes, quotes and video from Myers will be posted after this one. The team will start practicing on Saturday, practice again on Sunday and Monday, then fly to Tokyo, Japan on Tuesday. Here are some clips from Chase Center this morning:
Here’s the rest of the interview, but the first part about Andre Iguodala, which is included in the above, was omitted due to technical issues. So there needed to be another upload which is brown the first:
Below are some timestamps (which are clickable from either the Comments or Description) of the first part of the Q&A and quotes, but Dean “of Positivity” Chambers and I will go live on the channel at 6:00PM PDT today (9:00AM in the Far East and 10:00PM in South America) to discuss all the particulars and probably just analyze everything Kerr and Myers said in detail.
TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 Andre is working out (he wants to come back)
0:45 “we’re expecting everybody to be ready to go”, but cautious with vets, no restrictions
1:45 young guys past the first 6: “exciting but also daunting because you don’t just show up in this league and win”, Steph and Klay took a few years
2:58 “the more you do for your team…”, league pays for scoring
4:22 Wiseman: “he’s played in a ton of pickup games…finding his role…we threw him into the deep end (in 2019-20)”
5:36 Japan: “nobody’s gonna play heavy minutes esp our vets”
DISCLAIMER: These are all just notes for my main workflow of YouTube videos, tweeted by beatwriters. I used to transcribe every interview but it became too tedious and not worth the investment for the small amount of views we got on the soundbites on YouTube. The links to the tweets are not available because sometimes I don’t use the full tweet and just having a ton of tweets on this website imo isn’t aesthetically pleasing and gets away from the main goal: transferring information (not so much entertainment) asap.
• Kerr on Iguodala who has been working out at Chase: “I'm just hopeful. Beyond that I really don't know what Andre is going to do. We told him take as long as you want and he’s taking his time and that’s fine.” Kerr still has “no inkling” on whether he will return or not. (Madeline Kenney, Jason Dumas, John Dickinson)
• On James Wiseman: “Number one thing over the summer was getting healthy. And he’s healthy.” Wiseman has played in “a ton” of pickup games at the Warriors’ facility over the last month.
“He’s got a lot of confidence in that knee, so that was the first step. The next step is is just finding his role within this team.” (John Dickinson, Kendra Andrews)
• Kerr says the Warriors expect everyone to be fully ready to go at the start of training camp. No restrictions for Wiseman, Rollins or Baldwin. (Dalton Johnson, Madeline Kenney)
• On Moody: “Moses has a great shot to really take a spot in the rotation.” (Dalton Johnson)
• On Jordan Poole: “Jordan really established himself last year as a really good NBA player.” Kerr added the next step for Jordan is working on his defense to become a solid two-way player. (John Dickinson)
• Warriors have a secure starting five and Jordan Poole as high usage bench player or fill-in starter. Called the rotation “wide open” past his top six. “It is rare. We're in a sweet spot, we know that. Those sweet spots ... they come with special talent…There's a lot of competition out there, and we're one of the teams in the mix, and that's exciting. But we got to start over. It doesn't automatically happen from one year to the next, so we got a lot of work.” (Anthony Slater, Janie McCauley, Mark Haynes)
• On JaMychal Green: “thrilled” the Warriors signed JaMychal Green, and views him as a "critical" player with the team's youth and loss of players like Otto Porter Jr. and Nemanja Bjelica in free agency. (Dalton Johnson)
• On new Kings coach Mike Brown: "We'll miss Mike for sure, Mike was a huge part of our success." Credits Brown for Golden State's stingy defensive play during the championship season. (Janie McCauley)
• On teams around the NBA playing bigger: “I like it. I like when teams zig when everybody else is zagging. I think it's smart. I think our advantage has always been Draymond Green. He gives us the flexibility to play big or small.” (Mark Haynes)
• On Steph Curry: “One of the greatest athletes on the planet…I fully expect him to have a lot more great years.” Steph reminds Kerr of Steve Nash, who played until he’s 40. “You're talking about athletes who are ferociously committed to their craft, to their body, to their conditioning.” (Connor Letourneau, Kerith Burke)
• On Klay: “He’s in a great place mentally and spiritually… Our training staff repeatedly told him and told us over the last year that he'll be better this year than he was the second half of last year just because of the nature of the injury…I expect him to have a big year, be more consistent.” (Kerith Burke, John Dickinson)
• “The more you do for the team, the more the game rewards you.” (Kerith Burke)
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