From NBA to minors — the longest 70 miles
Rookie Jones eager to put his frequent trips to Santa Cruz in rear-view mirror
Halfway through last week’s late-night drive, Damian Jones, riding in the back seat of a black Chevrolet Suburban, glanced up from his iPhone at rain pounding the windshield.
“We’re about to get into these turns,” Jones said, his voice heavy with dread.
Almost on cue, the SUV veered sharply to its right. Jones dug his size-16 shoes into the floorboard to avoid bumping into the left rear window. Forty-six minutes into his latest ride from Oakland to Santa Cruz, where the Warriors’ rookie center would report for his seventh NBA minorleague stint, Jones had begun Highway 17’s winding trek across the Santa Cruz Mountains.
It was a nausea-inducing reminder that he was, again, heading to the inn with the beachfront view that has come to feel more like home.
Jones is part of professional basketball’s striving class, hundreds of players throughout the country who toil in a lesser league in hopes of landing a more permanent place in the NBA. A 7-foot project, Jones navigates a split existence: the seemingly constant yo-yoing between the NBA’s best team and its Development League
affiliate.
Hours before, in the Warriors’ pregame layup line at Oracle Arena, Jones, 21, had traded passes with Stephen Curry, who is poised to sign the biggest contract in NBA history this summer. In Santa Cruz, Jones would rejoin teammates earning $19,500 or $26,000, the D-League’s two annual salary levels.
But Jones needs playing time, regardless of the competition. He is still working back into game shape after missing several months with a pectoral injury. And his skills and fundamentals are raw.
“The main thing is, you want to test him early,” said Shaun Livingston, who played in the D-League long before he became a leader of the Warriors’ second unit. “You want to get him used to those tests, used to the grind.”
Jones was on the bench during a timeout in the Jan. 4 game against Portland when the public-address announcer asked a sellout crowd of 19,596 to “welcome the Santa Cruz Warriors to Oracle Arena!”
There on the Jumbotron, wearing street clothes, were Jones’ D-League running mates waving from their box suite. Head coach Casey Hill had brought them as a reminder that the NBA is only a call-up away.
“I was thinking about giving a wave or something,” Jones recalled. “I’m with Golden State, but I’m with Santa Cruz, too.”
In late November, when he was first sent to Santa Cruz, Jones wasn’t sure whether it would be a one-time thing. After he returned to Oakland a week later, second-year forward Kevon Looney, who had oscillated between the two clubs often as a rookie, told him to get accustomed to those sharp turns on Highway 17.
It has become common for Jones to play a game or two with Santa Cruz, then return to Golden State for valuable practice time. A crowded frontcourt and closer-than-expected games have limited Jones to just one NBA appearance, nine minutes of mop-up duty Dec. 10 in Memphis.
He shuttles between his two teams with relative ease, which is something the franchise always envisioned. In October 2012, 15 months after Golden State bought the Dakota Wizards — becoming the fourth NBA franchise to own its DLeague affiliate — it moved the club from Bismarck, N.D., to Santa Cruz and named the new squad after its NBA partner.
Today, Santa Cruz is used to groom Golden State’s unproven players, promising coaches and future front-office executives. Hill, the youngest son of former NBA coach Bob Hill, runs nearly the same ball-movement heavy system that Steve Kerr employs with Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.
“It’s a big deal for us to emphasize having synergy between Santa Cruz and Golden State,” said Santa Cruz general manager Kent Lacob, son of Golden State majority owner Joe Lacob. “We like to view ourselves as one organization that’s all under the same umbrella.”
Many NBA franchises have adopted a similar model. All 22 D-League clubs are affiliated with an NBA team, though players not under contract with the parent organization are free to sign anywhere. Fifteen NBA clubs have affiliated with DLeague teams in their home states.
Manageable commutes like Jones’ have only helped make the D-League an increasingly legitimate minor-league system. As of Friday evening, there had been 247 D-League assignments of 73 NBA players this season. D-League alumni signed NBA deals this past summer worth north of $700 million.
Under the league’s next collective bargaining agreement, NBA teams will reportedly have two new roster spots for “twoway” players who can shuttle back and forth to the D-League depending on where they’re playing. The new contracts will be worth between $75,000 and
$100,000, per the Washington Post — a significant bump from the current salaries.
A first-round pick from Vanderbilt, Jones is tasked with fitting in with D-League teammates who aspire to achieve what he already has. Jones’ four-year rookie contract, which has team options on the last two seasons, is worth up to $5.9 million. With Zaza Pachulia, JaVale McGee and Anderson Varejao on one-year deals, he is Golden State’s only true center signed past this season.
“I feel like I’ve just got to keep working because I don’t want somebody else to take my position,” Jones said. “I know I have to get better every day.”
During Jones’ first road trip with the team known as the Sea Dubs, the bus driver didn’t account for the possibility of a late-November snowstorm in the desert, and the vehicle broke down. By the time the bus pulled into Reno Events Center for Santa Cruz’s game against the Reno Bighorns, a typical 4½-hour ride had lasted eight.
Jones was recalled the next day to watch from behind the home bench in a suit as Golden State beat Atlanta. Thirty-six hours later in Westchester, N.Y., still bleary-eyed because his body clock said it was only 8 a.m., he scored two points in 21 minutes as Santa Cruz lost 99-98 to the Westchester Knicks in front of more than 3,000 elementary-school students on “School Day.”
Jones tweaked his shoulder in that game, leaving him inactive for the next afternoon’s matchup at the 17,732-seat Barclays Center in Brooklyn. An announced crowd of 249 was on hand to see Santa Cruz drop its fifth straight game, 114-104 to the Long Island Nets. But no tickets were sold to the public, and Jones, accounting for scouts and front-office types, estimated there were no more than a few dozen people in attendance.
“It was dead, it was terrible,” Jones said. “It felt like practice out there.”
Playing with Golden State comes with perks: suites in the Ritz-Carlton, charter flights, lavish meals, use of the team’s car service, raucous crowds in world-class arenas. In midNovember, after flying from Boston to Milwaukee, the Warriors were greeted at their luxury hotel at 3 a.m. by a crowd of autograph seekers.
Life with Santa Cruz is far more mundane. When road games are too far to bus, players curl their oversized frames into coach seats on commercial flights. They sleep in budget hotels in such basketball outposts as Sioux Falls, S.D.; Erie, Pa.; Hidalgo, Texas; and Des Moines, Iowa. Their $50 per diem for meals is spent at an array of chain restaurants; Buffalo Wild Wings is a club staple.
When in Santa Cruz, the entire team bunks at Beach Street Inn and Suites, a quaint two-star hotel just a short walk from the city’s famed boardwalk. Jones has stayed there enough to slip into a familiar routine: homemade bagels for breakfast at the Bagelry on Cedar Street; free afternoons playing at Casino Arcade on the boardwalk or relaxing on the beach; a pregame dinner of salmon at Ideal Bar & Grill down the road from the hotel.
Though in a different tax bracket than his D-League counterparts, Jones has not dominated at the lower level. He is averaging 23.8 minutes, 6.9 points, seven rebounds and 1.9 blocks in 16 games (nine starts). Unlike fellow Golden State rookie Patrick McCaw, who has played two games with Santa Cruz to stay sharp after extended stays on the Warriors’ bench, Jones is on a specific development plan.
A physical specimen at 7 feet, 245 pounds, Jones got away with taking plays off in college. His D-League goals are modest: give consistent effort, attack the glass and grasp the spacing necessary to become a reliable interior defender. By that measure, Jones had a breakthrough during his most recent Santa Cruz stint.
On Jan. 6, in a 13-point, 12rebound, four-block outing against Grand Rapids, he stayed out of foul trouble and didn’t turn the ball over in 30 minutes. Hill was borderline giddy that a winded Jones asked to come off the court three or four times.
“It’s important for him to make sure his effort is at 100 percent all the time,” Hill said. “That was a great sign.”
It was shortly after midnight on Jan. 5 when the black Chevrolet Suburban snaked up the long, winding entrance to Beach Street Inn. Jones grabbed his backpack, duffel bag and teamissued luggage — enough to get him through Santa Cruz’s next six games — before lowering his head to step into the hotel lobby.
“Welcome back!” said Roy De La Cruz, a short, affable employee manning the front desk. “Were you at the Warriors game? Did they win?”
“Yep, got the dub,” Jones said of the 125-117 victory over Portland hours earlier.
He was still a bit disappointed: Had Golden State played better, he might have made it onto the court. He was the only Warrior who didn’t.
Damian Jones, Warriors rookie center “I feel like I’ve just got to keep working . ... I know I have to get better every day.”