To Curry, ‘kind of like a blast from the past’
By Art Spander
Steph Curry hit this one. Not with a jumper, with a comment, about a victory that that was as emotional as it was unlikely. “It was,” said Curry, “kind of like a blast from the past.”
From the distant past, from the Warriors’ championship seasons, five, six years ago, when Golden State was Golden and no deficit seemed impossible to overcome — which Monday night against the Lakers a deficit seemed to be but wasn’t.
Warriors’ Wiggins plays D and outplays the critics
By Art Spander
When a year ago Andrew Wiggins was traded by Minnesota to Golden State, a sports blogger named Brandon Anderson wrote, “The Timberwolves might have saved their franchise, while the Warriors made a catastrophic misstep that could put their dynasty on the brink.”
Basketball brinksmanship as practiced by the Dubs seems to be working. We’ll learn more after Tuesday night’s game against the Pacers at Chase Center.
The Warriors have won four of their last five, and in their most recent game Wiggins played like a man who could have been the No. 1 overall pick in the draft, which six years ago he was.
Even for his defense, which was unexpected — at least to those who thought they knew a man once labeled “Least Defensive Player” in the NBA from a plus-minus rating.
As an NBA observer tweeted last February when the Warriors acquired the frequently belittled Wiggins, ”Maybe he’ll smile with Steve Kerr.”
Kerr, the Warriors coach, certainly is smiling because of Wiggins. “We’re not asking him to change our franchise,” Kerr said of Wiggins. “We’re asking him to play defense, run the floor and get buckets. He’s capable of doing all that.”
As verified on Sunday night, the night Steph Curry was only 2 for 16, with just 11 points. Wiggins scored 17 and guarded Toronto’s Pascal Siakam down the stretch of the 106-105 victory.
“He just used his length, athleticism and anticipation,” said Kerr. “We now have someone we can put on the opposing team’s best player, whether it’s Pascal Siakam, LeBron James, Kawhi (Leonard) or Paul George.”
Klay Thompson had that responsibility, but of course he’s missing the season with the torn Achilles tendon.
The 6-foot-8 Wiggins always was expected to do more than he did, at least by his critics.
He grew up in the suburbs of Toronto, hockey country, and two years into high school moved to a prep school in West Virginia. A Feb. 7, 2013, article in Sports Illustrated knocked Canadian basketball and Wiggins’ work ethic. In his next game, he scored 57 points.
After a year at Kansas, Wiggins was taken first in the 2014 draft by Cleveland but, quickly enough in a swap that involved the Cavs, T-Wolves and 76ers, went to Minnesota. As part of the transaction, the Cavs got Kevin Love.
What Wiggins would get was complaints. Sure, he had impressive games, but not enough of them, even though he would be voted Rookie of the Year. The era belonged to the Warriors and Cavaliers, and T-Wolves fans were disenchanted.
As were some of the media.
During a Bulls-T-Wolves game two years ago, Chicago play-by-play announcer Neil Funk piled on Wiggins.
“We’ve seen Minnesota twice this season, and Wiggins has not been engaged in either game.” said Funk.
“He just kind of floats around out there — he does nothing ... Zach (LaVine) is just much more active than a Wiggins type, night in and night out … and Wiggins just has that, and I’m sure he wants to compete, we know he’s a talent, there’s no arguing that, but his body language is as if ‘I don’t care, I’m just out here.'”
Then he was out of there. One basketball observer couldn’t decide whether the Warriors were more thrilled getting Wiggins or getting rid of D'Angelo Russell.
The answer has arrived. Maybe Wiggins simply needed a team like the Warriors. Maybe he became more determined. Sometimes what’s needed is a change of scenery. Sometimes a change in motivation.
“I’m playing with the Defensive Player of the Year, Draymond,” Wiggins said of his new approach. “He’s out there, he’s vocal, he helps out a lot on defense giving us advice, just showing us certain things. We’ve got the rook down there, James (Wiseman) trying to clean stuff up. It’s been good.”
For the Warriors, and for Andrew Wiggins. At least so far.
Draymond is the one who makes that difference
By Art Spander
The best defensive player in the world. Steve Kerr said that about Draymond Green. Of course it’s an exaggeration, but this is an era of exaggeration, and if anybody is going tell us that it would be Kerr, who is Green’s coach with the Warriors.
And if anybody deserves that compliment, that exaggeration, it’s Green.
“There’s no sport where one player makes that much of a difference.” So said Chris Mullin, the Hall of Famer who once made a difference for the Warriors in the 1980s and now does their pre- and post-game TV.
That comment is not an exaggeration. It’s the truth.
In football, a player is 1/11th of the lineup; well, 1/22nd, considering offense and defense are separate units; in baseball, one-ninth; in basketball, one-fifth. But numbers alone are inadequate.
Even those of the win streak that the Warriors carry into Wednesday night against the Clippers at Chase Center. Two games.
A trifle compared to the 24 in a row that opened the 2015-16 season. Yet after an 0-2 start to the schedule, a bit of reassurance.
The Warriors have spent time practicing. James Wiseman, the No. 2 overall pick in the November NBA draft, has spent time improving. Steph Curry has spent time making most of his shots. Green has spent time reminding everyone how much he was missed when absent because of a sore foot.
“He’s kind of our point forward in many ways,” said Kerr, “and the leader of the team.”
That last part is no exaggeration.
Curry is the headliner, the one who gets the points — 62 two games ago — and, with two MVP awards, the most attention. Think of the Dubs, and you cannot think of anyone but Steph.
Wiseman is the comer, and his progress, with only three college games and then months of relative inactivity, has been tantalizing. When this kid learns the game, others will learn what he’s about to become: one of the greats.
Andrew Wiggins is the mystery, the first man taken in the 2014 draft but who has been twice traded and frequently criticized for being more unpredictable than reliable. Ah, but maybe this is his spot and his year.
Damion Lee, Eric Paschal, Kelly Oubre, Kent Bazemore and Kevon Looney are among the pieces on the roster.
Green is the feisty, experienced and wise guy who has to make certain those many pieces fit properly.
“He impacts the game so dramatically on defense,” Kerr said of Green’s play after the Warriors defeated the Sacramento Kings, 137-106, Monday night. “And then on offense he gets us organized.”
In those recent glory days when Kevin Durant was around, and Klay Thompson was healthy and Andre Iguodala was anywhere he needed to be, Draymond got what was coming to him — NBA Defensive Player of the Year in ’17 — and made sure teammates got the ball.
There were incidents, the scuffle with LeBron James, then of Cleveland, and suspension in the 2016 finals; the argument with teammate Durant in November 2018. Nothing that would keep Draymond from his role.
Those days, five straight finals, three titles, are gone. So, through injuries (Thompson) or personnel movement, are most of the men from those teams, other than Green, who will be 31 in March, and Curry, who will be 33 also in March.
A feeling of familiarity. A need for adaptation.
“They know each other so well,” Kerr said of Green and Curry. “So their pick-and-roll game is beautiful to watch with their hand-backs. And Draymond understands how to get (Curry) open. Our defense gets a lot better with Draymond on the floor. Steph gets more transition opportunities as well.”
Then there are the other Warriors who leave Green uncertain.
“There are times out there,” Green confessed, “where I’m out there on the floor and I don’t know where to go because we’re all figuring each other out. So it’s important we get that movement, and even as important that I’m directing that movement and helping guys get that understanding.”
The best defensive player in the world seems as capable with the ball as without it.
The crazy NBA: Curry frustrated; Clippers lose by 51
By Art Spander
The Warriors, who aren’t supposed to be very good, win a game by a point. The same night the Clippers, who are supposed to be very good, lose one by 51 points. And you think you understand the NBA?
The league is a compressed lunacy of late-game baskets, late-night charter flights and — other than LeBron James’ greatness — unpredictability.
I mean, whoever thought we’d read an AP story with a paragraph beginning, “The Clippers opened the third quarter on a 10-0 run to get within 40"?
Or that Steph Curry would be having trouble finding his shot?
Curry and the Warriors are back at it again Tuesday night, playing the Pistons in Detroit, their fourth straight road game to begin a season that already is a blend of shock (those routs by the Nets and the Bucks) and elation (that last-second in at Chicago on the 3-pointer by Damion Lee).
Asked if after that first victory there was a sense of relief, Warriors coach Steve Kerr said, “Relief for sure, but more a sense that finally we can figure this thing out a bit."
What most of us figured out quickly enough is that it will take time for even so accomplished a shooter — he made 105 straight 3-pointers the other day in practice — to work smoothly with teammates other than the ones from the glory years.
“He’s frustrated,” Kerr said of Curry, “but that’s kind of natural. For Steph, this is a brand new team.”
A team without Kevin Durant or Klay Thompson or, until his sore foot heals, Draymond Green; a team with Kelly Oubre, Juan Toscano-Anderson, at times rookie James Wiseman and Damion Lee. A team as much seeking to make progress as to score points.
It’s one thing to know when to pull up for a jumper. It’s another to know who will be to your right if you decide to pass.
Kerr was an earlier version of Steph Curry as a player, if not quite as skilled, a gunner who could hit 3-pointers. He started with the Bulls, as a teammate of Michael Jordan, went to the Spurs and finished with the Blazers.
“Every time I went to a new team in my career,” said Kerr, “it was difficult to find comfort with my shots in the early going. And I think Steph is really going through the same thing because he’s not as comfortable where his shots are coming from because of different personnel.”
No question Thompson and Durant made it easier for Curry and everyone else on the Warriors. Sports are about adapting, or as Curry reminded, about learning and improving.
Not that Curry has far to go. He scored 36 in the 129-128 win at Chicago (and was supposed to take the last shot, but smartly the ball went to Lee), and in the three games Curry is averaging 25.
For Curry and the Warriors, who didn’t qualify for the playoffs, it was six months without basketball, then a week of practice and two exhibition games.
“We’ve never gone through this before as professionals, or at any level,” said Curry. “But no excuses. The shots I take I think I’m going to make. I seldom take one I don’t; maybe one or two bad shots in a game.”
Curry said that, for now, it’s energy that’s important, even more than accuracy. Same thing for Oubre, who’s been having a terrible time of it.
“The win was important,” Curry agreed. “1-2 is better than 0-3. A win in Detroit would make us .500 for the trip, which would be OK. The last thing you can do as a shooter is stop shooting, no matter how frustrating it is.”
And maybe find satisfaction that you didn’t lose a game by 51 points like the Clippers.
Clippers, Stephen Curry, Warriors articles, basketball Email Article Steph Curry is the face of Bay Area sports
By Art Spander
"Basketball is back.” Steph Curry made that comment a short while after he made us understand he too is back, throwing in those jump shots, tossing in those observations.
There will be no winter of discontent.
Curry and the Warriors head back to Sacramento, up Interstate 80, for another preseason game tonight against the Kings.
“Another opportunity to get better,” is how Curry describes it. “Trying to find my rhythm as fast as possible.”
Not that the search seems particularly difficult.
On Tuesday night, same teams, same place, Steph was rhythmical and accurate. He played 28 minutes. He scored 29 points. He had 4 assists. He had 3 steals,
He had what we know as a Steph Curry game.
Curry not only is the focus of the Warriors' offense, he’s the face of sports in the Bay Area.
He’s the celebrity who plays golf with Phil Mickelson and Peyton Manning. He’s the spokesman who congratulates Stanford’s Tara VanDerveer for becoming the winningest women’s basketball coach. He’s the two-time most valuable player.
There was a broken hand for much of the pandemic-shortened schedule last season. There were ankle problems early in his career. But mostly there has been satisfaction, for Curry, for the Warriors organization as it won championships and for the fans whose patience and loyalty were rewarded with a half-decade of success.
This is the 12th season for Curry, who off court, with his family and outside interests, doesn’t miss a thing and on court almost never misses a free throw.
He’s comfortable in his skin and in his roles as husband, father and hero, passing out compliments as smoothly as he passes the ball.
Asked the problem with a defense, which was criticized by head coach Steve Kerr after the Tuesday loss, Curry emphasized it was without Draymond Green, out after a positive Covid-19 test.
”He’s the quarterback, the defensive coordinator,” Curry said of Green. “He’s everything. We all have to be in sync. He makes us an amazing defense.”
Curry is no less appreciative of Steve Kerr, who became Warriors coach before the 2014-15 season, when the start of the domination — three championships, five consecutive NBA finals — began.
“It’s been an amazing journey,” affirmed Curry. “(Kerr) hasn’t changed at all, even with the physical stuff, being in and out of his seat.”
Kerr was so in pain from a bad back that at times, even during the playoffs, he was unable to sit courtside, and the coaching was done by Mike Brown, still the Warriors' primary assistant.
“We have great communication,” said Curry, talking about Kerr and himself. “He’s meant a lot to my success. He’s very consistent. So for me as a point guard, I’m an extension of him on the court. There’s transparency and communication, one through 15.”
Meaning each man on the roster.
This year figures to be different. Klay Thompson will be out. A 7-foot rookie center, James Wiseman, the No. 2 pick in the draft, in time may be in.
Someone wondered what the biggest thing Curry had learned in his seasons in the league and on the Warriors. Not surprisingly, the answer reminded us what we had learned about Curry, that he is eternally aware.
“I don’t think I learned this,” he said, “but I have an appreciation of what we get to do every single day. We haven’t lost that excitement.
“No matter how many championships we’ve won, or how many we lost., we keep the right perspective. The NBA is a blessing, and the ability to be in our world is an amazing experience. We all have lives off the court, and Steve appreciates the values we bring in our own stories.”
Yes, basketball is back, and so is Steph Curry. How fortunate for us all.
Stephen Curry, Steve Kerr, Warriors articles, basketball Email Article