Kyrie Irving to Steph Curry: “Admiration goes both ways”

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Below is the transcript for one Wardell Stephen Curry after the loss in Dallas. I’m tweaking the format here a tad bit. Over the past week, ironically coinciding with the devastating Jimmy Butler ACL tear, I’ve been adding narrative game recaps to the regimen, so this website took a backseat for a little bit as I recalibrated the workflow.

The “honest recaps” are also on Spotify and Apple Podcasts; here’s the Miami and Toronto games:

It’s not like I haven’t been busting my tail off during the Jimmy debacle in the absence of posting new articles. I’ve been going back and forth with my co-host Dean “of Positivity” Chambers, as well as Yossi Gozlan of Third Apron, on potential realistic trade market solution(s), now that the calculus has changed away from practical solutions that complement the Big Three, to “What would still be considered meaningful basketball if Jimmy has a torn ACL?”

Those types of special articles will be part of the auto-emails that come with the Substack platform, only. The transcripts like on this post here from each game or podium visit — which still are always prevalent on our YouTube channel, in case you were wondering — will be posted asap, but not incur an email inbox notification.

Idk if I’ll have time to go back to all the stuff over the past week to catch up, like Mike Dunleavy, Jr.’s rare presser, but there’s still a huge element of this website that will continue to document quotes, for the sake of documenting the Golden State Warriors.

I still think that’s important in this era of typical addiction to short-form aggregator tweets that lack context of the entire quote and original question from the reporter — which inevitably leads to misinformation. The next domino that falls after that are the false narratives and emotionally throwing Warriors staff and/or players under the bus, as a result.

This website and our Discord server will continue to be the last niches of unadulterated databases of information and logic and learning, rather than quagmires of outrage and speculation and other forms of entertainment.

Sign up for the Discord server for free here: https://whop.com/letsgowarriors-discord-free

One needs to be free of negative energy to go back to love for the gratitude, appreciation, mindfulness and empathy of basketball — this is exactly how Steph approaches life, by the way. It’s crazy how social media apps have veiled a good portion of fandom from the literal behind-the-scenes daily life approaches of their heroes.

Thank you for your grace during this small pivot period. Without further ado, here’s some cool stuff said by Curry about his brotherhood with guys like Kyrie Irving.

As far as the Dallas game itself goes, please check out my new recaps — GSW-DAL recap to be posted within 24-36 hours of final buzzer — but more importantly keep a lookout for my forthcoming honest and realistic trade proposal that has the support of Gozlan and requisite rebuttal from Chambers.

In the spirit of “meaningful basketball”, I think you’ll like it.

Along those lines of highlighting the tangential Kyrie reference last night, with all that we Warriors fans are going through right now in the aftermath of a devastating injury, let’s escape that for a moment and re-enjoy Steph’s camaraderie with the rest of the league and his obvious joy with sneaker game:

There’s nothing but mutual respect and admiration for what he’s done in his career. Like you said, the battles that we’ve had and the deeper you get into it, you appreciate the fact that his talent kind of raised your level throughout the journey. And we don’t get to spend much time together, but there’s that mutual respect. You can — like you said, the All-Star Game, had a amazing conversation. I hit him before tonight and made sure he was cool with me wearing his shoes because I know he hasn’t had a chance to debut them himself on the court, but and he said the admiration goes both ways, so I appreciate greatness and it’s kind of been fun throughout this process to shine a light on competitors, rivals, friends, guys that mean a lot to you.

Of course, you can peruse all the other details from the Mavericks game in the video interview with captions, and transcript below:

00:00 We haven’t talked to you since the Jimmy news came down. How have the last few days been for you and just how are you kind of, I guess, processing what this means for y’all?

00:11 STEPH CURRY POSTGAME GSW-DAL: It’s obviously a tough situation, like first and foremost you think about him and his recovery and his spirits, just trying to be for him — be there for him as a friend, teammate, but basketball wise, we have to make the necessary adjustments and try to keep the semblance of our identity that we were forming with him as a part of that push and these last two games have been difficult making that adjustment, but I think emotionally we have to kind of try to move on as fast as possible, to not let things spiral the wrong direction.

00:57 Steph, to follow up on that, how do you not let the frustration of everything (inaudible) overwhelm the rest of the way, here?

01:11 I know sports and this league, things can change overnight with an injury like that to a guy like Jimmy. It happens all around the league and teams have to figure out how to go through it. I guess it’s just our turn now and so just the idea of staying competitive, together as a unit this road trip, hopefully we can bounce back and have a night where things go our way and we start to feel good about ourselves. But it’s no secret, this is difficult for everybody trying to accept the reality of what’s going on.

01:56 I mean, what’s your (inaudible). Do you think y’all can still win in the way you want to win?

02:05 I mean, as long as I’m out there, I’m always confident we can win, so it’s how I play, it’s how we want to play and until proven otherwise, you have to carry that mentality. That’s just what this league requires. It’s not really fair to try to project too far down the road because we have work to do right now to answer the call of what this team without Jimmy needs to do to win.

02:42 Steph, how much burden do (inaudible) Jimmy (inaudible) different?

02:47 Well, tonight was different just because we struggled to make shots and you kind of have to force the issue a little bit when that happens, but overall, it feels the same as usual. I don’t think I came out with any other intentions or different intentions than I do or have this entire season. It was a rough patch early and we tried to get through it and there was times where I felt like I had to take some shots that were a little aggressive, but I think knowing how teams have been guarding me and on a night like tonight where defensively was more of our issue and we’ll have to find the right combinations of guys to try to fill the absence that Jimmy has. It’s a big hole, for sure.

03:45 Steph, before Jimmy’s injury, you guys had won 12 of 16, you were building momentum before the trade deadline. Reinforcements might have been coming. How do you think that this injury should change the overall direction of the franchise?

03:59 I’m not talking about that right now. We’re just trying to win a game on the road, so there’s a lot of time before February 6th. There’s a lot of time before the playoffs. I don’t need any existential thoughts right now.

04:13 What do you, I mean, Kuminga gets hurt tonight. He’s putting Jimmy (inaudible) the picture recently, (inaudible) whether or not think he can still (inaudible) what’s going on (inaudible)?

04:23 Exactly what he did and all the minutes that he was out there before he got hurt tonight, just pick and choose the spots when he can attack. He made some great, what do you call it, 0.5 Basketball plays where he’s swinging it to the open man. If he has a one-on-one situation with space, doing what he does to score the basketball, so it’s just a tribute to him just staying ready. I know it’s been a while since he played, but the work that he was putting in and understanding how things have drastically changed from one game to the next, he looked good. He looked like he was comfortable out there. Hopefully he’s not out too long and can pick up where he left off.

05:14 Steph, the last time (inaudible) but the last time I spoke to you, you said you would would be interested in coming to the Crawsover in Seattle at some point. Is there any way (inaudible) this summer, potentially?

05:28 I love JC (Jamal Crawford) and everything he’s doing, but I don’t know my summer schedule yet.

05:37 What sort of (inaudible) describe (inaudible) been through (inaudible) so jarring to see what happened Monday night and it seemed like that kind showed maybe, too (iaudible). Is the emotional sort of state of the team framing the way you wanna see it or is there still some residue from sort of shock and Jimmy going out?

05:57 I think it’s gonna take a minute to settle in again to the new reality, but like you said, the emotional shock and a back-to-back, how quickly we had to turn the page, Toronto played unbelievable, you kind of chalked that one up. Tonight, I thought we showed a lot of fight considering how bad we shot the ball throughout the course of the game. With six minutes left or somewhere around there, it was a one-point game. Like, I thought you played well enough to give yourself a chance down the stretch and then they went on a crazy run in the last six minutes. But it shows that we’re all still in it, we’re all still competing, but I think we we’re gonna have to really scratch and claw and play outside of ourselves to get back on the right direction. That’s what it’s probably gonna take and I think we can do it, but it’s not gonna be easy.

06:59 What does playing outside (inaudible)?

07:03 Just executing a — I don’t wanna say flawless, but where you check all the boxes, low turnovers, shooting the ball while defending at a high level, not giving up offensive rebounds, pretty much everything we didn’t do tonight.

07:23 Steph, I was writing a story about your love of popcorn. I understand you said the Dallas Mavericks have the best popcorn in the NBA. What makes you say their popcorn is best?

07:33 There you go.

07:34 I’m locked in.

07:38 (Inaudible)

07:39 However they make it, it’s fantastic. It’s fresh, nice, salty. It’s unbelievable, so I had to make sure I got me a to-go bag, for sure.

07:49 At the All-Star Game last season, you and Kyrie were kind of having a moment during the game, showing each other moves. Tonight you wore his shoes in the game, you’re wearing them right now. Could you describe your relationship and what it’s like just having it develop since your rivalry in the Finals?

08:06 Yeah, there’s nothing but mutual respect and admiration for what he’s done in his career. Like you said, the battles that we’ve had and the deeper you get into it, you appreciate the fact that his talent kind of raised your level throughout the journey. And we don’t get to spend much time together, but there’s that mutual respect. You can — like you said, the All-Star Game, had a amazing conversation. I hit him before tonight and made sure he was cool with me wearing his shoes because I know he hasn’t had a chance to debut them himself on the court, but and he said the admiration goes both ways, so I appreciate greatness and it’s kind of been fun throughout this process to shine a light on competitors, rivals, friends, guys that mean a lot to you.

09:00 For someone who has such a routine, pre-game routine, you do the same thing before every game. What is it like to wear a different pair of shoes for all these games?

09:09 There’s a wear testing process before to make sure I know what it’s gonna feel like and that I can feel good out there and do what I need to do, so I’m not just wearing anything. Well, I say that and I wore tennis shoes last game, but there’s a balance of the pre-game and having fun and then the in-game, making sure that I can do what I need to do on the court.

🫶💙💛