Cook’s right at home: 30 points
Quinn Cook is one of those guys, when he moves into your neighborhood, he knocks on your door and introduces himself, he doesn’t wait for you to drop by and say hi.
Cook is moving into the NBA, just renting now but hoping to buy. And for him, part of the deal is getting to
Bucks 116, Warriors 107:
Kevin Durant ejected in return. know folks.
Before games, Cook finds out the names of that night’s refs, then introduces himself. Not to kiss up to them, but because what the heck, they’re just like him, working hard and trying to have a good game.
If Cook teaches Draymond Green that trick, treating refs like humans, Green might not get called for another foul, technical or otherwise. (That said, Cook had five fouls Thursday.)
About a month ago, Cook
finished his early pregame warm-ups and, exiting the court, stopped to shake hands and introduce himself to a random media guy loitering courtside. Nobody does that. After 2½ seasons knocking on the NBA door, sipping coffee with five teams and tearing up the G League, Cook just might have found a home.
Steve Kerr keeps saying, “Quinn Cook is an NBA player,” but Cook would prefer not to be the kind of NBA player who gets passed around like a tray of hors d’ oeuvres.
Cook started his 10th consecutive game for the Warriors on Thursday night, in their 116-107 loss to the Bucks. Cook is Stephen Curry’s stand-in, and, if he can keep hoopin’, he’ll get plenty of run in the playoffs.
On Thursday, Cook scored 30 points, hitting 12 of 15 shots, including all five of his threepoint attempts. In a sequence early in the game, Cook dished to Kevin Durant for a three pointer, then Durant dished to Cook for a three-pointer. Just before halftime, they connected again, Durant to Cook, for another three.
No surprise that those two were in sync, considering they’ve been buddies for more than a decade, going back to many playground games around the D.C. area.
Durant busted into the league through the front door, one year of college, then instant superstar. Cook played four years at Duke, then was undrafted and became the high plains drifter. Until now.
He’s making himself at home, or trying to. The Warriors signed him after the Hawks waived him Oct. 17. Cook signed as a two-way player, able to yo-yo between the Warriors and their Santa Cruz G League team. Curry’s knee injury was Cook’s opportunity.
“When I first got up here in December,” Cook said recently, “I had no practices (with the Warriors), I wasn’t at training camp or anything. So to get thrown in game situations, it’s new at first. But I’ve been up two months, every day I get more comfortable. Get more comfortable every possession.”
A team insider told me that Cook is a student. He asks his teammates questions, listens to what they tell him, studies a lot of video.
He’s learning. Four games ago, in San Antonio, the Evil Dr. Popovich had his Spurs run Cook through about a thousand hard screens, chasing point guard Patty Mills.
Mills is the perfect role model for Cook. They’re about the same size, 6-foot or a shade over, both quick, and both scorers. The Warriors would like to see Cook remake his game, kind of like Mills did.
Mills, after three seasons in the league as a bench player, took an offseason to get himself in much better shape and turned around his career. Popovich said of the 2012-13 Mills, “He was a little fat-ass.” Now he’s an effective starter.
Cook doesn’t need a body makeover, he’s already in fighting trim. But the Warriors want him to ramp up the pace of his game, play like Patty. Instead of scoring and attacking only when he has the ball, the Warriors want Cook to become a super-aggressive, perpetual-motion man — the motor to Kerr’s dynamic, flowing offense.
And for sure, they want him to shoot. The Warriors need points off the bench, and Cook shows signs that he can supply that. But he can’t hang back, can’t hesitate.
Cook said his coaches and teammates tell him “not to be so passive, where I’m passing up shots . ... At first, I was just trying to get guys the ball and not step on anybody’s toes, but I think they need me to be aggressive, especially now (with Curry out), but even when the (four All-Star) guys are here.
“They brought me here for a reason. I’m getting more comfortable, adjusting to the speed, adjusting to everything, different coverages, different defenses. When I pass up shots, guys get on me. That does a lot for my confidence.
“They all just tell me to play my game.”
They don’t tell him that because they like him. They tell him that because they need him.