UNITED THEY ROLL
The first of many happy moments?
OAKLAND — Bob Myers was doing a routine interview, during a routine exhibition-game halftime, saying routine things, and then all of a sudden he didn’t need to say anything.
The Warriors’ general manager just had to point 20 feet away, at Kevin Durant racing over to embrace Stephen Curry.
And the two Warriors teammates — and league MVPs — beaming and giggling like kids. What a thing. “Stuff like that,” Myers said, after a good and happy pause as the Oracle crowd roared at the sight of their MVPs, “is good to see.
“That’s what makes it fun.
Seeing guys that like playing basketball together. That’s worth it right there.”
Then Myers and I just let the scene soak in for a little bit, because it was a this-is-for-real moment, at least for me.
“Just catching up,” Durant said after the game of his Curry chat.
“Good to see him. Glad he came to support us — him and ’Dre (Andre Iguodala).”
Curry was a late-arriving audience member for this Team USA-China pre-Olympics exhibition at Oracle, and Durant is the team’s dominant scorer.
Curry is skipping these Olympics to heal up for the coming NBA season, and Durant just signed with the Warriors in one of the biggest free-agent acquisitions of all time.
Two different people. Two megastars. Joined in one orbit, for real, right there.
For this moment, in front of about 18,000 fans, with Iguodala sitting nearby, and Draymond Green and Klay Thompson also playing for Team USA, Curry and Durant were the merged personification of everything epic about this coming Warriors season.
“Coming back here, obviously, it was a USA thing, but to me it’s more about him (Durant) than anything,” Green said after the game.
“For him to come here, his first game played here as a member of our team, in a Team USA jersey ... nobody will look at it that way, but that was history.”
Of course, Durant delivered early, as ordered up by Team USA point guard Kyrie Irving — who happened to make the shot in Game 7 that lifted Cleveland over the Warriors in the NBA Finals.
Green said Irving told Durant he was going to him right away, and that happened to be in the first eight seconds, off of the opening tip, and Durant took Irving’s pass and immediately buried a 3-pointer.
To the great joy of the Oracle crowd and Durant’s new teammates.
“It was amazing,” Green said. “Came out guns blazing, which is good to see.
“Just to play with him on this floor is great. He was definitely excited.”
Said Durant: “I knew I would pull the first shot — since yesterday.”
Durant went on to score Team USA’s first 10 points — and finished with 13 in the eventual 107-57 blowout.
But, of course, this wasn’t about the score or even actually about Team USA rounding into Olympic form, since a gold medal in Rio is fairly inevitable.
As Green noted, this was about Durant coming to Oakland as a Warrior for the first time, and for everybody in the building to fully understand that this is for real now.
Maybe even Durant felt it, at least as far as Green could see and hear.
“He was himself in the locker room (before the game),” Green said of Durant. “He kept saying, ‘Man, I got the jitters, like first-game-type jitters.’ But it was great to see.”
Coach Mike Krzyzewski purposely started all three Warriors in this game as a nod to the home crowd, and Green took the microphone at the start to thank the fans, with Thompson and Durant alongside. Iguodala was courtside with his son, and Myers was nearby.
Then Curry made a dramatic, crowd-rousing entrance during the second quarter.
“Make sure you all give Steph some crap for his grand entrance,” Green said with a laugh.
Didn’t matter — Durant bolted out of the locker room at halftime straight to Curry’s courtside seat, and that’s when the embrace took place.
If you were there, you probably won’t forget it.
“It’s fun to see him out there knowing he’s going to be playing for us, to be honest,” Myers said. “Selfishly, it’s fun to see.
“It’s good to see Andre and Steph out here supporting them.”
And Durant looked pretty happy, didn’t he Bob?
“You could see … but, you know, he hasn’t had that moment yet,” Myers said. “I think it was a precursor — an appetizer, I should say.”
A pretty good Warriors moment. A loud one. And just the first one.