Dubb Dynasty is a production of iHeartMedia and the NBA.
Hard We backs off on Tom's hold and he exploded it go. That was brilliant, every bit as good as Richmond's move in the first half. Pretty miraculous move. He left Isaiah just nailed to the floor.
It got the entire Warriors bench on its feet.
The killer Crossole.
Slices and dice perfections.
Five minutes to go on the third seal by.
Redford behind the left.
The hardaway, by the.
Way, lays it up in there. Ron hagens better than Needle the wrichment.
He does can.
Richmond opened from nineteen.
He kills it.
He had a new season high for Mitt Richmond.
Nolle runs out another rebound.
He's opened from the perimeter down it.
It's tip cold and standing intercepts a mask and the Warriors tip won game, the first Golden State playoff win at the Forum since nineteen sixty nine. The series is tied at one game apiece.
Those were some highlights from one of the more popular Golden State Warrior teams that previously mentioned. Run TMC squad led by Tim Hardway, Mitch Richmond, and Chris mok The one that kickstarted my love for the NBA and a team that was beloved just as much as any of the championship Warriors. Since I'm Israel Gutierrez and this is
dubb Dynasty. Those run TMC Warriors reached the second round of the playoffs in nineteen ninety one, beating David Robinson's Spurs in the first round, then losing to the eventual Western Conference champ, the LA Lakers. The team didn't get much of a chance to build on that momentum because the innovative head coach Don Nelson was also a bit
of a mad scientist. He saw a new age six foot eight point forward named Billy Owens who'd been drafted by the Sacramento Kings, and Nelson had to have them. So he traded Mitch Richmond for Owens and tinkered with the chemistry that already seemed ideal. But what we all saw in those couple of run TMC years was a glimpse into the future. Nelson got the most of his small ball approach, it appeared, but maybe there was more. Was run TMC really just a decade's early preview of
the famous death lineup? You'll hear about several more times in this series. Chris Mullin himself certainly credits Nelson for his vision.
Don Nelson was an innovator way ahead of his time. As you said Israel, he had implemented that similar system in Milwaukee. A great, great team in Milwaukee with Marcus Johnson's City, Moncrief, Bob Lanier, Paul Pressey, Brian Winters. They had a really, really good team. But Nelly was still using bigs. He had Bob Lanier a Hall of Fame center. When he came to Golden State, Nelly went almost exclusively small. You know you referenced that San Antonio series, you know,
that's that particular series. In the first round was five games. We lost the first game, we got blown out, and Nelly came in the locker room and said, we got him.
So what Kyle Like, what do you mean we got him?
He just blew us out.
So they had David Robinson, Terry Cummings, Sean Elliott. They were a big traditional NBA team. Larry Brown was the coach. Nellie. The next game he started Mitch tim and I with Rod Higgins and Mario Ellie.
That's right, Mario Eli making his first NBA start once he got Don Nelson has backing up as a lot of laa six.
Foot five John camp Powder out of America in the National twenty seven year old rookie by way of the CBA.
That was his answer to go extremely small. We wound up winning the next three games.
Gold and State Lawyers advance to the semi finals to play the Los Angeles Lakers. This is their eighth con second win counting regular season here at the Coliseum. They lost the opener and then swiftly the next three. Larry Brown and the Spurs could never solve the small, quick line.
Up and the big three of Golden State.
So yes, way ahead of his time. A lot of teams are playing small now. You see four out, one, eight or five out at times, trying to spread the floor outside of three point line, penetrate the paint, off the dribble, kickoff for threes. But Nellie, you know, Nelly was old school teaching principles before he took plays. Spacing, pace, attack off the dribble, don't overdrible. If you don't beat you man at three dribbles, give it up. You know he didn't like guys over dribbling. But if you straight
lines and beat your man, go make a play. But always Nelly always liked balance of attack. He loved he didn't. He liked a three point shot. We didn't shoot as many back then. We shoot it, but we didn't. But he loved. He would always preach shoot open shots as opposed. You know now you see with the defense is taking away his free point line in the layup, all that real estate in between, which analytics says is a bad shot.
Nellie would call those layups.
The small ball philosophy wasn't Don Nelson's alone, He just happened to be the most committed to it yet. In the big picture. While Nelly's tiny teams were fun to watch and occasionally surpassed expectations, the fatal flaws always remained true. Small teams didn't defend well enough, and eventually, when defenses reached playoff level, some of those jump shots either won't
be open or just won't fall. It's why by the start of the twenty fourteen fifteen season, the Warriors had made a handful of adjustments to what was widely viewed as the classic dreaded jump shooting team. Part of what unlocked Steph Curry's potential wasn't just two full strength ankles. It was the Warriors moving on from a more stable body but less sustainable game in monte Ellis, well, they.
Gave it right back to Ellis Elvans for the how pretty is he in the open boy?
Check it out? Never booked at.
The bath mante Ellis.
Great breed anticipation by monte.
Ux cut about it. Ellis Aldrick just left it. We can't leave Vonta Ellis.
Ellis doing what he does best. Yeah, what he does best.
Is score, though you cannot give him any space at all.
Ellis had been a nice piece of the We Believe Warriors team that upset the Dallas Mavericks in the first round of the playoffs in two thousand and seven. For more about that team a little later, and by the time Curry was drafted, Ellis had graduated to the team's
leading scorer and seemingly its centerpiece. But during Curry's rookie year, the six foot three Ellis infamously told the Bay Area media before the season ever started that he couldn't play with Curry, not in the Kobe Bryant era anyway, saying, quote, you can't put two small guys out there and try to play the one in the two. When you've got big two guards in the league, you just can't do it. Okay, yes, we're gonna move up and down fast, but eventually the
game is gonna slow down. You can't do it. So count Ellis is a disbeliever and small ball if you will. But he was correct in a way. He didn't say the front court had to be huge. He just said two small guards couldn't survive in the NBA when the game slows down, so happens. At the same season Ellis got traded, the Warriors were playing a six foot five rookie two guard off the bench named Klay Thompson, who was about to prove to be the real reason Ellis
was expendable. It would be a prophetic statement from Ellis then, because even after leading the Dubs and scoring for two plus seasons, the Warriors would trade their most popular player. This was during Steph Curry's most injury shortened season, a time when Golden State was still uncertain just how that right ankle of Curries would hold up after an off
season of repair and care. And it was for a player who had never averaged as much as sixteen points a game in a season, a player who only had five playoff games of experience to his name, and who wouldn't play the rest of that season and miss a good portion of the following year because of injuries as well.
That sounds like a gamble, to say the least. It was no surprise at all that the Warriors fans took it terribly when Golden State, still supposedly writing the excitement and potential of new ownership, traded Ellis to Milwaukee for former number one overall pick Andrew Bogan. David Lee had already experienced the organizational makeover and survived. This trade reaction was quite the site.
Three years into my tenure there. It was all new executives, all new coaching staff, all new front office, even like the secretaries and the offices were different. The only people left on the team where me and Steph were the
only two people that were held over. And so you know, we could see that when they were bringing people in, it mattered to them that the team that there were chemistry guys that could build a culture, and that was something that I think previously the ownership felt was lacking a little bit. They had some talent along the way, but not everybody yet along.
Real well, the fans of the team weren't getting along with Warriors decision makers. I not to sound dramatic, but according to Golden State fans, the Ellis trade was the worst thing to happen to the franchise ever, and they were loud about it.
I'll never forget going out at halftime they said, oh, we're going to introduce, you know, the new ownership, Joe Lakeup's going to give a speech. And him getting up there and after making that trade, he was booed off the court and I mean just sitting there and Boot and Pa and the fans are yelling at them because they were such monteo as fans. Rightfully, So and so Boga came in and not only did he arrive to the booze, but also didn't play his first year because he was coming off of an injury.
What Lee didn't recall, That's how jarring the booze were with the fans. Did this during Chris Mullen's jersey retirement ceremony.
I think we have one.
Other thing to do that Noway, he saved the rest for last.
Let's bring up the owner of the Gold's dead Warriors. Mister Joe Laiell, what.
Tonight? How we got that over with tonight is about two things. Embracing history and respect the Warrior's ownership, the current Warriners our owners I think it's very important to embrace history. Something has been done in the past, perhaps as well. And when you speak of Warrior's history, there's no.
One Chris Mullen himself would try to come to Lake Ofb's rescue.
I got I.
Got it.
As the greatest fans in the NBA.
As everyone stated, sometimes change is inevitable and it's gonna work out.
Just fine.
With your support and patience and use that passion and the direction.
This thing is going in the right way.
I've got great con.
Since Joe Mark Jackson, everything will work out just fine, just a little bit of patience, use that.
Passion that's so cringe worthy you don't even need to see it to feel it. It was such a sudden turn from optimism in twenty ten when Lake bought the team to this just two years later. But just as shocking about that clip was how precient Chris Mullin was. The Warriors not only turned it around, but they were a mere three seasons away from a championship and the start of one of the most incredible runs in NBA history. It's among the greatest. I told you sos in sports.
Larry Riley, the same riot who pulled the trigger on drafting Curry, would get full throated blamed for moving on from the twenty six year old Ellis so hastily.
We had just made the drunk and mister Joe lakem walked out to the court and boy here it just rained with booze and the media went not so they were on my case. Larry Riley doesn't know what he's doing, And there were all kinds of times like that. The reason that I thought we could do it was I still saw Clay as a player who wished about me, and I thought losing Mintey opened the door for Clay Thompson.
There was that name, again, fitting that Clay Thompson was rather unassuming in his college days, despite having a father, Michael, who played in the NBA. Because it's how Clay would somehow remain despite being a major player in a sports soap opera. Clay would prove to be the perfect fit alongside Kurt the anti Monte if you will, in large part because he didn't snatch up all the attention, because
he didn't need to dribble much at all. Because if Curry's jump shot was textbook, Clay's was biblical.
The quick release, of course is important, but then the form and the rotation on the ball was always consistent, and I always felt like at the point of release, everything was right where it should be. There are some players who have got their elbow out a little bit when they start out, but when they get to the point of the release, if it's consistently where it should be, that's not even a problem. He had that point of release where it was quick and everything was where it
should be. He wasn't making shots by luck, he was certainly a shooter.
With the eleventh pick in the twenty eleven NBA Draft, the Golden State.
Warriors select Clay Thompson from Washington State University.
I'm I'm extremely excited about it because I've seen Steph play a lot, and that kid can pass the ball, and you know, with us in the backcourd on me on the wing, I just think we'll be able to space to floor so well together because you can both shoot that ball. So I'm excited. You have there and play with a point guard like him, because I know he really has a good knowledge.
Of the game.
Despite that praise, there was nothing obvious about Thompson that made him the Warriors pick at number eleven that summer. On the board was a potential star in Kawhi Leonard,
who was drafted four picks later. Drafted just ahead of clay By the nearby Sacramento Kings was Jimmer fer Deck, a player with splash ability but certainly not the size or the complete game as Thompson, and had the Warriors gone with their other choice at the time, you would have seen Mark Keith Morris, one half of the Morris Twins, in a Warrior's uniform, trying to be the perfect compliment to Steph Kurt Minor. Note that seems a bit more
significant now. Jimmy Butler was also on the board for the Warriors in that draft, but he went number thirty overall, the last pick in the first round, to the Chicago Bulls. When we come back the story behind how the Splash Brothers got their name and changed the games that twenty eleven twelve NBA season, Thompson's rookie season and the year step suffered his worst ankle injuries, and the year the Warriors traded Ellis also happened to be a lockout shortened season.
It was a compact season where about the only thing that went right for Golden State was Klay Thompson finishing sixth in the Rookie of the Year vote. Even Bogan, who had little success in Milwaukee to start his career, didn't think of Golden State as any sort of favorable destination.
We only went there once a year with a Milwaukee box, so I didn't get a real good experience there, but knew that they weren't really good. I don't have much success, kind of a turnstall of an organization. It's kind a similar to Milwaukee in away where people got their players got there, they didn't want to stay there long term. They used it as a year or two to get
their numbers up and get paid somewhere else. So that's kind of the feel that I got when I got there, And it was kind of you know, when we got there, it was you know, there was a lot of fans that were just happy to see basketball but didn't really worry about winning. You know, it's still still sold out most games, or was close to full at Oracle even when they were you know, had twenty win seasons, which was really impressive.
Basically, Boget wasn't sure if management knew what they were doing either. It must have made for the occasional sleepless night for the decision makers involved. The very next season, however, more of this extended story started falling into place that included a lovable nickname that, let's face it always adds to the likability factor of a team right run TMC. The Splash Brothers, as Steph Curry and Klay Thompson became known seems like a moniker that's been around since the
day the first two stepped on the court. To get it actually took a couple of seasons.
Les Splash Brothers getting rid of them play three.
That's the two were such obviously great shooters that their first coach at at Tandem, Mark Jackson, would constantly make boastful claims about them, including calling them the best backcourt shooting pair of all time.
But we got guys that can knock down shots. When you talk about you know, Klay Thompson and Steph Curry, in my opinion, that the greatest shooting backcourt in the history of the game, and I'm a guy that's just not throwing that out there. I followed basketball my entire life, not only played covered, but I was a fan as a kid. I watched the great players, and these two guys were absolutely off the charts.
The best shooting back court of all time doesn't quite roll up off the tongue is easier. Thankfully, a game in December twenty twelve helped condense it. The game was against Charlotte then the Bobcats, where Stephan Clay combined for twelve three pointers and forty seven points in a Golden State win.
The second game in a row with Eagles, his career pass with seven threes, he.
Does more threes in any game, and his tired career marks in the NBA.
At halftime of that contest, a writer for the team website, Brian Witt, updated Stephan Clay's performance with the hashtag and splash Brothers. The team liked it and encouraged him to
continue using it, so it took off from there. David Lee had a triple double in that game, by the way, but I guess snow lovable nickname for him, the Splash Brothers Moniker actually has Bay Area roots as another pair of fake brothers because they Cansako and Mark McGuire once dominated the sports scene as members of the Oakland Athletics.
Those four giant forearms combined to hit so many home runs for the A's that they became known as the Bash Brothers, sending baseballs into the atmosphere and celebrating by high fiving forearms instead of hands. The Splash Brothers didn't have a signature celebration. Steph would certainly establish himself as the king of the signature sellys, but they did have a signature. They would rain jump shots, but there was a newfound defensive element to their approach. Mark Jackson wasn't
just good at instilling confidence in players. He understood that defense was a necessary companion to win at a high level, and he taught it well. The Warriors had crept up from twenty seventh in the league in defensive raiding the previous season three spots from the bottom to fourteenth in
the twenty twelve thirteen season. It was a significant jump, and one that propelled the Warriors into the twenty thirteen playoffs, their first postseason since two thousand and seven and just their second in eighteen years.
Just listen to the crowd.
You guys are the best fans in the NBA.
You deserved this as.
Much as we do.
So Hooray to go.
The six seeded Warriors beat the number three seed Denver Nuggets in six games, a lot like that run TMC team that upset the San Antonio Spurs back in nineteen ninety one. This scene the moment in time the Warriors truly made it on the NBA fan radar.
Shot clocket six, Cream put a free stepping Couriers close four to.
Give.
It wasn't just that the team had won a playoff series, but they did it and rather vincent fashion, and because of an injury to David Lee in the first game, also went with a run tnc type mentality, going small thanks to versatile talents like Harrison Barnes and Draymond Green.
Let's jap away by Thompson's good prop by loss of that's.
Yet god.
Going and steak go to the second round.
Let's succeed keep them free.
Well.
I remember, first of all, to start that season, I remember reading on on ESPN they had an article, you know, the kind of season preview, and they gave us a zero percent chance of making the playoffs, not a five percent, not a seven zero percent chance. And I remember we put that up in our locker room and we said, so they're giving us no chance, and we make the playoffs. And we saw such an improvement that year, but we were going to face a very tough, you know, Denver team.
I mean they were stacked. They had a lot of good big guys, they had a lot of guards that could really play, and they had home court against us. So we were going in saying, let's put up as good of a fight as we can try to steal one of these on the road. I tear my hip flexer in the first game, and it was one of those things that coaches like, look, you know, we're really going to struggle, but let's try to do something different.
Let's go small ball and we'll have and we'll have Harrison and Draymond with a little bit of boget and let's just see what happens because Denver wants to get out and run. Anyways, and ended up being a perfect matchup and they won I believe, Game two, and then came back home and took care of business in that series.
And I think that series was not only a turning point for the franchise to kind of announce it their back, but also it really caught the eye of a lot of people nationally where Golden State became one of those teams because of Stephan Clay's shooting that people were like, while we really like watching these guys and we can't wait to watch more of them in the future.
And they happened to convince a certain all star forward that he might want to join the Warriors and free agency. Andre Iguidala was a crucial member of those George Carl coach Nuggets, but after the surprising series was over, Carl was accusing Iguadala of passing along team secrets to the Warriors.
It was acclaim Agwadala and the Warriors readily dismissed, but Iguadala would make his way over to Golden State that offseason as a free agent, a move largely influenced by the crowds he experience in Oakland during that first round series. He also noticed a team that was breaking league stereotypes. Defense and toughness weren't supposed to be part of a team led by a couple of elite shooters with a cutesy nickname. Surely Iguadala was leaking intel if these Warriors
were bullying the bullies. Andrew Bogitt is certain that wasn't the case, however, and that George Carl was reaching for answers.
Yeah, he was trying to say that. I think that he was leaking stuff to it was a sneach or a spy, like leaking the game intel or scouting to us. I didn't hear that once, So I didn't hear Mark Jackson mention any of that to us. So yeah, I mean it would have if I'd assume if he tom Mark Jackson or someone on our staff and things, we'd have it in our scating report. We never had any of that. We didn't really need it, to be honest
with you. They are pretty predictable with what they were going to do over the course of the series, so we felt like we had a pretty pretty good spot. But that was It was an interesting series on a number of fronts. You know, they were they were a team that we struggled with years before I got there, and a few other guys got there, and I think bringing some physicality and some guys that weren't scared to stand up to those you know, Kindeth th Reid and
those kind of guys, I think was really important. And you know, we just we just outplayed him for the most part in that series. And you know, I think that was you know, coming our party for a lot of guys, but just shown that we had a versatile group that could I mean, given night, anyone could have fifteen twenty points.
Probably tracing the town, resetting, hand off, curry off this foot boga, little game of trust, shot cock a truck, what get the us up in the four inside up pick in the town.
And we could put physical you, we could outshoot you. And I think it really started to.
For us.
It changed narrative of us. Like I think a lot of people, you know, even even in the championship years and whatnot, it was always like we're a running gun team and we're just shooting a bunch of threes. People didn't realize that we were doing a lot of grunt work at the other end, and it kind of went unnoticed, which was good because everyone just thought we were this you know, d' antonio type and Phoenix Suns team that
that that soft and just wants to shoot threes. But we weren't, and I think teams got a shop when they came into players because they thought it would be that easy pace with them. But defensively we will really solid as well.
The Warriors would actually get even more solid defensively as that Denver series progressed. That's because an injury to David Lee in Game one kept him out of the final game of that series and opened the door for more Draymond Green minutes. Green was in his rookie season, still trying to find exactly where he'd fit in next to a former All Star like Lee and future greats like Stephen Clay. He was irregular in the rotation, but his minutes would vary greatly even late in his rookie season.
Shooting thirty six percent from downtown Draymond Green what moved fading in the lane greene with an offensive rebound Thompson Lade Thompson stay tune was took Lady hardaway.
Jack.
Chap him by Green.
Even after Green was drafted by now with Bob Myers promoted to general manager making final draft decisions, the Warriors weren't exactly sure how Draymond would translate to the NBA. Riley was still assisting Myers. At the time, the team was scouting Draymond and he noticed a winner's approach.
I'm on board of Raymond.
And here's why I go to watch I don't know two or three times at least. I go to Ohio State University late in the year, snow, I like predictions that snow blowing sideways and it's an afternoon game, great crowd, and Graymond just works and works and works. He rebounds, he fights people. He's a winner. And I came out of that gym shot the Stein Arena thinking, okay, if there's a way to get to this guy.
Not maybe too high, but he is a winner.
And then there's all the criticisms about it, listens being too small, too short, won't be able to rebound in the NBA like he has the college doesn't make shots and all those kind of things. Some of the shot making, Okay, I gather it. But this guy's a winner. He plays hard, he will defend, he will rebound. And I always felt rebounding. If you can rebound in college and you are a play it can't be a dud and just get some rebounds.
But if you can rebound in college and you are a player that normally he's going to translate.
Green's game began to transform around his splashier brothers in that Denver series. Once the second round series against the Spurs started, Green was playing thirty eight minutes in a double overtime game, still off the bench, effectively getting the important minutes that token starter and fellow rookie festus A Zili was not. Lee noticed Green's influence whether he was on the floor with him or not.
He always had the attitude, always had the work ethic, always had the grit, and the knowledge of the game. Is a very smart player. But I'm not sure anybody expected a second round pick to come in and ever be a starter. And when given more opportunity, he played
even better. And I think it became very clear that his relationship with Steph and his ability to find stuff and put Steph in positions to be as productive as possible, which with the player that Steff was becoming, that's what we needed was a bunch of guys around that could support Steph and make him better, and Draymond was the perfect guy to do that. Set a lot of great
screens do all the dirty work. Steph defensively has gotten better at the time wasn't great, and Draymond was kind of that guy that was like, hey, when you get beat, I'm there and then I'm back to my man. So he did a lot of things that some people would notice, and you know, the casual fan would notice some of it, but when you really dove into the numbers, him with Steph was a great combo. And I mean you've seen that now many years since then it's proven to be the truth.
The Warriors lost that series opener by two points after two extra sessions. They eventually fell in six games to a Spurs team that went onto the NBA Finals and was a defensive rebound away in Game six of those finals from winning it all. Who can forget that ray Allen three pointer that changed the course of NBA history.
James Catchers clutch up with three. We'll go five sack count Adam his three second.
Yet it was a series the Warriors felt they could have won if that opening game had just ended differently.
Here's anoble but three time, I don't state dispersely. Is it upset with general things?
Three point ten?
There is?
He's not upset on that three point a time of Mark Jackson made.
Me upset with this defense because they did not communicate and they left the man wide open.
Who knows what would have happened if the Warriors win that game that series, maybe go on to meet Lebron James in the NBA Finals a little earlier than scheduled. Still, the Warriors were able to benefit by not advancing, perhaps a theme that would continue in this story, because it kept Iguidala extremely interested in Golden State while Andrea was being pursued by the Nuggets, Kings, and Mavericks, all of
them effectively maxing out what they could pay him. The Warriors were desperately trying to make room for the Do Everything Forward. It wasn't until they could move on from the contracts of Richard Jefferson and Andres Biadrin's Thank You Utah Jazz, that the Warriors could finally offer Igwadala what he needed to sign. It wasn't as much as those other teams were offering, but it was enough to get
Iguadala into the fold. Yet the following season, despite healthy seasons from Steph Clay and Draymond, despite the Iguadala edition, despite another season under Mark Jacks and the additional bench boost from Maury Spates. The Warriors still lost in the first round in seven games to the Los Angeles Clippers. It probably should be noted that this was quite the
moment in NBA history for another reason. While the teams were playing games three and four in Oakland, TMZ had released audio with Clippers owner Donald Sterling making racist remarks in a phone call with his then girlfriend Vistiviano. By the time the teams came back to Los Angeles for Game five, there was a strong possibility that both teams would walk off the floor and pro test and not play the game. It was mere monthson to Commissioner Adam
Silver's tenure, and the players were demanding action. Eventually, Sterling would have the team taken from him, but the drama of that moment was unmistakable. Perhaps it helped push the Clippers to a close victory in the series. Regardless, the Warriors took their painful l in a very chaotic series clippings up.
Being seven and then advance to the second line. The turns of dry the defense of the coach Trump Rivers.
There was a sis drink.
They weren't fully healthy, as Andrew Bogett missed the series with an injury, but there was still a lingering sense of disappointment. Hurts even more because you tasted it before.
You taste a little bit of success and you want more.
So definitely stings a little more.
In last year, the Warriors were supposed to be growing, not being surpassed by a team with Blake Griffin and Chris Paul. Would a change be necessary Under normal NBA timelines, Mark Jackson would have gotten another season at least more time to prove the first round exit was the low
point and not a downward trend. But these Warriors front office folks didn't consider themselves traditional thinkers, not when it came to NBA decisions, and there was enough bubbling up internally that confirmed some of the doubts the front office had about Jackson. So just three days after losing that Game seven, the Warriors fired Jackson, shocking a lot of folks within and outside the organization. Bogitt was one of them, but he also understood the thinking.
Look, I was shocked at they made that decision because it was a tough decision. I think as far as the organization goes, you know, we just the Warriors had I mean, in the playoffs for so long, there's a lot of media noise around. They finally made the playoffs, you know, two years in a row. But I knew that Mark Jackson had done a great job. But I thought that he team taking that team as far as
it can go for a number of reasons. I know there were Smith Cord issues that marquad with the organization, and I know the locker room was kind of split the all guys that loved him and guys that kind of were left on the outer I was. I was thrown in the middle of that, saying that I was one of the guys. I was neither here or there. I was kind of I was always my own guy, and there was there were some things that went on that I didn't agree with, but I supported as part
of being part of a team. So I think that, you know, his started coaching kind of was a springboard for Steph getting to where he was because it gave him a lot of confidence. He put the ball in Steph SAMs a lot. But he was kind of an old school New York mentality coach, where you know, if you made the last shot, you were getting the ball the next play, and you will We're throwing it to you until you missed, and then you missed your shot.
All right, let's go to a clean Now, now you get three or four touch as, we'll see how you go. And it's just not a fun way to play. It's a you know, the team team wasn't very involved with very isolation based. Our defense was pretty good under Mark Jackson, I think. But I think that that you know, from what we understood that there were rumblings between the front office and the coaching staff about is this a championship roster. I believe the front office staff kind of were inclined
to say this is building towards a championship roster. I think there were people on the coaching staff that disagree with that as well. So the visions were a bit distorted from what I understand, and I think the change was had to be made for the longeviany of the franchise.
Had to be made. It's not the type of vision you expect from team leadership, but it was the type of vision this ownership group would need to assure this wasn't just another two year flash in the pan. But who would match that energy, who was capable of picking up where Jackson left off and moving the team forward with no setbacks on the NBA. On team, Charles Barkley echoed the sentiments of many traditional NBA thinkers.
Or you had mentioned this last night to Charles, you know, and we had even while Golden State was still playing, when he was saying, Hey, I'm coaching for my life here and that kind of thing.
I have no idea why he was coaching for his life.
You know.
They made the playoffs the one time in seventeen years before he got there, and he got him to the playoffs back to back years. They were not the team that was going to beat the Clippers. The Clippers had a better team and they were Minos Bogan.
Heeck.
Phil Jackson probably couldn't be expected to make this team a champion within a year. But there was an executive in Phoenix who had also been a former player and a TV analyst, and he was interested in the job. Steve Kerr had worked with Rick Welts in Phoenix, and Welts was now in the business side of the Warriors franchise. Welts knew Kerr was the type of person Golden State wanted, one who already understood the relationship the Warriors business side
and basketball side wanted to maintain. This was perhaps even more so than the drafting of Steph Curry, which was partially out of the Warrior's hands. The most important decision this ownership group would make. Choosing the next leader of this group would either unlock this collection of talent or it would be the one that would eventually crush this group's potential and have players with relatively short careers turning elsewhere to find their success. That's how fragile these things are.
The NBA no pressure after the break. How does Steve Kerr keep a fractured team together? And his controversial move that was the key to the season.
You know, I wasn't in the meeting meeting where he sat down and came in famously with his binder that basically he had, you know, laid out everything that he was going to do with the Warriors, and I think blew Bob and blew Joe Lake ofm Away.
That's Rick Wilts Warriors team president at the time.
But I, like I said, I had the benefit of being around it for a few years and observing how he interacted with everybody, with players, coaches, people in the office, and I knew that again, like as a human being, we were getting a really special person who knew a whole bunch about basketball, and you know, in terms of a face of the franchise, in terms of you know, how we knew the Warriors would be presented to the world, and how important he would be to that. It was
everything you could have, you could hope for. He's a champion, he had an amazing has an amazing personality. He's a great community cater. He treats everybody incredibly well. I mean I always remember him walking around the office in Phoenix, like he would have a five minute conversation with the receptionist before he would ever, you know, come in come into the business offices. So like, he treats everybody with such respect and honesty and like a genuine, uh desire
to form a relationship and have it be successful. And I think all those things you know for a coach are incredibly valuable x's and know's. It was a little bit of a risk, right, but I think it.
Worked out for it.
Kerr was also being pursued by the actual Phil Jackson, who was an executive with the New York Knicks at the time. The Warriors were also considering to stand Van Gundy a coaching free agent, but Kerr eventually turned down Jackson and the Knicks and Joe Lacob and the Warriors eventually chose Kerk.
We picked Steve Kerr when we interviewed him, he was incredibly He's obviously very very smart. He had been around incredibly great coaches, has five rings. We all felt confident that he was the right guy to turn good into great, even though he had not coached before.
I always loved the Warriors brand. I thought they were similar to the Sonics in that, you know, basketball crazy West Coast town with like, you know, really strong basketball history, you know, both at the collegiate level, and you know the talent that had come out of the Bay, you know, going back to you know Bill Russell and Casey Jones, and but then the you know, the the championship in the seventies, much like the Sonics, you know, captivating a
whole region. Every time I came to to Golden State as a player to play the Warriors, even though the team was rarely good, there was always a buzz in the building. It just felt felt really like this is a special event, and so My perception of the Warriors was probably similar to Joe lakeabs when he bought the team. It's a sleeping giant, and so I was excited. My
daughter was a student at Cal at the time. When they offered me the job, It's like, Wow, I get to you know, you get to go coach Steph Curry and go watch my daughter play volleyball at Cal. That's not a bad thing. So it all was such a perfect fit for me, being a California native and been being so excited about coaching staff and coaching the Warriors. It was an amazing opportunity.
An opportunity. He had a detailed plan for it, hence the finder Wick Welts mentioned, Kerk brought with him to the Internet and one curR knew he had to start immediately that included a trip to the other side of the world to visit was starting center Andrew Bok. There were, as Bogan mentioned earlier, very big fans of Mark Jackson still in Lockwood, so Kerr wasn't just introducing himself but making sure he didn't isolate any players who might have questioned the decision.
Yeah, when Steve got hired, I mean the first thing he did he went and visited all the guys. He actually threw out to Australia for literally forty eight hours just to meet with myself face to face and say hello. And he knew that it was a bit of frustration with the way things went the previous two years, you know, with the way we finished seasons off, and he kind of wanted to reiterate his kind of commitment to myself starting and being an integral part of the defensive unit
and role and all that kind of stuff. So that was important. And then once once training camp started, it was, you know, the biggest thing Steve did. He knew that Mark Jackson was well liked by some guys in the locker room, so he didn't want to come in and say kind of throw the the baby out of the bath water, like we did a lot of good things
under Mark Jackson, Like our defense was very good. We're going to tweak some things here and there, but we want to keep that same philosophies at the same court offensively and then run Adams out of our assistant oversaw that made and tweaks, but we kept a lot of that the same Offensively was where he really wanted to change things. And he really, you know, analytically, they got some numbers and our passes per possession as a group, we're really poor under Mark Jackson, which leads into what
I said. We were very isolation based, and our turnovers were another big thing. We'd have periods where we all get loose with the ball. And his biggest thing was if we can limit turnovers and get him down to a smaller number, just by three or four turnovers a game, which is ten points at both ends, and we share the ball a bit more. We would try to get we always try to get at least fort to five possession, but passes per possession. We've got a chance win the championship.
And you know, you hear all coaches come in, new coaches and you get to every team and every team says championship three. But did we really believe it at that time?
I don't know.
I kind of believe was still a little bit away, like maybe I have to prove ourselves, get into a conference finals, take out bumps, some bruises, and then maybe who knows.
This wasn't the typical spot for a new coach, much less a first time coach. Normally a coach is being replaced because the organization has struggled and needs a reset, and with said reset comes room for air. This job came with expectations immediately, maybe not championship expectations, but some level of proof that the team was in fact better than the group that advanced to the conference semifinals two
seasons earlier. The job also came with a high standard, the Jackson set, which Kerve found to be the largest obstacle.
I think the biggest challenge was replacing a very popular coach. You know, Mark Jackson had done a great job, really had flipped the culture of the Warriors, turned them into a defensive minded team for the first time, and who knows, who knows how long, And I know Mark was very popular with the players for a good reason. He had done a great job and really empowered Steph and Clay to become the stars that they became. And so when I got the job, it was it was really unique circumstances.
You know, usually you don't get a job like this where a team is on the rise and has this kind of hope right away. And so I just felt like the biggest thing was to earn the trust of the players, to really respect the job that Mark and his staff had done, and let the players know that, you know, we were we were here to try to help them take the next step, not not tear anything down because they had already built something really strong.
How strong would be the question? Strong enough to convince Andre Gudala he should come off the bench for the first time in his career, a player who was still in his prime and who just took a discounted rate to play in Golden State. Apparently so, at least that was it with Dolla's assessment, because he made the move
to the bench with no complaints. Kerr leaning on a veteran to make a sacrifice, a vet who happened to play at Karazama Mater Arizona was also a veteran like move from the rookie coach.
Well, I mean, Andrea was the unsung hero of that whole season. You know he's he was the guy who gave up his starting job right away in the first game, first game, first time in his entire career he'd ever come off the bench eight hundred and something games played, and that first night was the first time he had ever done it. So I took a leap of faith on his part to trust me when I came to him with the idea. But I think also that he was at a place in his career where he had
done everything else. He had been an All Star and made max money, and he wanted to win in the worst way, and so he was willing to trust me. I think because of our connection to loud Olsen and U of A, and you know, having both played in that program, we shared a very similar basketball perspective and philosophy, so he trusted me. It didn't take that long, but it did take a couple of months, I would say, for him to get comfortable in his role.
Iguadala's role would famously change at the very end of curse first season because the Warriors had all the pieces in place. They'd set themselves up with a roster they were fond of and a coach they thought would get the most out of everyone involved, but they'd have to face months and months of doubt. Charles Barkley, the default voice of the NBA, set the tone back in the pre playoffs conference call, saying, quote, they had a terrific season,
but I don't like jump shooting teams. I don't think you can make enough Jumpers to win four series in a row. I've said that for twenty five years, not just now. I think you physically manhandle them inside. Barkley's theory would certainly be tested throughout Kerr's first playoff run, and the Warriors would eventually have to face the ultimate Goliad.
If it was physicality that would bring down the Warriors, the six foot eight face and frame of the NBA Lebron James would certainly be the person to expose it on the next dub dynasty.
I remember we saw him get it going in the third as we'd come into the time out and he's like, Hey, I want to run this play and stuff's losen. He goes, David, We're not running any place. He's like, play, let's see how far we can take this thing.
It was just still humming, and I think our defense was elite. Our rotations were a lead up bench was elite, like it will just feed in such perfectly.
There were a lot of people who doubted sort of the way that they were approaching the game.
Beginnick, it was just this crescendo that started to build and it just didn't stop.
You know, this team had been in the playoffs, the previous two years, so they already had playoff experience, so it wasn't like I was preaching something that they weren't totally aware of, but there was a lot to get through to understand how hard it was still it seems.
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