It’s the deep thoughts, cheap shots & bon mots special Warriors edition
Rihanna? Forget Rihanna. This column will not deal with Rihanna or her role in inspiring the Warriors by sitting courtside at Oracle and swooning over King James (the LeBron Fawn?). I’m told that using Rihanna’s name high up, multiple times, will drive online readers to this column. Sorry, this is no time for cheap clicks, this is a time to celebrate the Warriors. So, no Rihanna today.
Watching Thursday’s festivities, the fantastic weather, the hundreds of thousands of passionate and adoring fans, in a fantastic city that is blooming, I had this thought: Hope Mark Davis enjoys his Vegas Refrigerator Dome packed with pit bosses and high rollers in that city where Hooters is a 20-story building.
Last year’s Finals, Stephen Curry had 26 assists and 30 turnovers. This time: 47 assists, 19 turnovers.
Generous gesture by Joe Lacob and Peter Guber, picking up the tab for Thursday’s parade. The cost was about $4 million. Lacob had to ask Oakland if it could break a five.
Meanwhile, Davis is trying to get back his cleaning deposit.
Coolest guy on the Warriors? Klay. He should be the star of a TV reality show. I’ve got a title: “Klay.”
I looked up “diva” in the Dictionary of Antonyms. There’s a picture of Klay.
This turned out not to be a bad omen, but for Bob Myers, the day of Game 5 started with a bitter loss. Myers’ pickup basketball team lost the deciding game in a spirited morning run at an East Bay gym. Bob took the loss hard, but found solace that evening.
President Trump’s advisers will tell him that inviting the Warriors to the White House is a golden opportunity to connect with black America, a segment of the population that does not adore the current POTUS. If the Warriors go, handshakes will be awkward, in many ways.
Curry’s feelings on Trump are well-documented, but along with political considerations, it gets personal. Curry is golf buddies with former President Barack Obama, and Trump devoted many years and tens of millions of dollars to trying to expose Obama as an illegal president, born in Africa. Trump has never apologized.
Sorry, that last sentence was so unnecessary.
Jerry West’s greatest contribution to the Warriors was getting Mark Jackson fired. Jackson knew West was critiquing him to Lacob — that was one of West’s duties — and resented West, and insulted him, treating him as an enemy. Without that minifeud, it would have been harder for Lacob to make the tough call on firing Jackson.
With West and assistant general manager Travis Schlenk gone, the Warriors have taken a serious hit in the talent-evaluation department. The day the Warriors picked Mike Dunleavy No. 3 overall in 2002, I phoned West. “Terrible pick,” he said. “He’s a nice player, a complimentary player, but he cannot create his own shot, and that’s what they need.”
In fairness, that was not a killer draft, though Amar’e Stoudemire (No. 9 overall) would have been more helpful.
How good were the Warriors this season? So good that they could save their most lethal weapon, the CurryKevin Durant pick-and-roll, until Game 5 of the Finals. Head coach Steve Kerr explained why to ESPN’s Zach Lowe. “I learned this with Phil Jackson and the triangle. When everyone is involved, touching the ball and cutting and screening, there’s a magic that happens, there’s something special where guys feel empowered, their defense gets better because they’re involved. And so I think what’s important for me as a coach is to play the style we do.”
Best art inspired by the Finals: A Cleveland artist created a bust of LeBron James out of dryer lint. I think I saw a hunk of one of my socks in LeBron’s forehead.
Did anyone get a chance to ask Tyronn Lue if he still feels that the Celtics’ offense is “harder to defend” than the Warriors’?
Emailbag: “Reading this article was a waste of valuable time.” — Joshua Sprys. Thank you, sir. Now get back to curing cancer.
You would get chills viewing the wall-mural-size photo hung Wednesday in the lobby of the Warriors’ HQ. It’s a fullcourt shot of Durant’s pullup three-pointer over LeBron in Game 3, with 47 seconds on the clock. If there was a cartoon thought balloon over Durant’s head, it would contain an ice cube.
On that shot, LeBron was a step slow on the closeout. But for the series, the one-on-one battle between James and K.D. was epic. It was the most ferocious and physically contrasting battle since the Gold Rush days, when the miners, for recreation, staged fights to the death between a bear and a bull. Where was PETA?
This would never work, for various reasons, but: Warriors’ hybrid center, Blake Griffin.
When I got out of bed this morning, I thought I was ready to rumble, but without Michael Buffer’s cue, I couldn’t pull it off.
Let’s fade out with: “There’s a magic that happens ...”