I kinda feel bad posting this now because Klay Thompson just walked into American Airlines Center in Dallas wearing a No. 89 Cowboys jersey. Turns out, per a tweet from the Warriors, that was to honor Gavin Escobar, Klay’s friend who died last September while the Golden State Warriors were in Japan. But on we go, as I finished writing this this morning and had it ready to publish now because it will be old news once we hit postgame…
Gavin played four seasons as Tight End for the Cowboys during his NFL career. A native of Klay’s hometown of Rancho Santa Margarita, he tragically passed away last fall.
KT at his finest from Dallas! I’m going full Klay mode and calling it “just another charismatic Klay interview of entertainment” or JACKIE for short. Remember that song “Night Shift” by the Commodores, which included a tribute to Jackie Robinson? The lyric went, “Jackie, oh, you set the world on fire.” Yep. Klay in front of a camera equals Jackie on the diamond. Same.
Btw, CJ Holmes of the SF Chronicle tweeted out a clip of a few seconds of Gary Payton II doing some exercises with a trainer — I’ve removed the paywall from last week’s article on him revealing the scrimmage date of last Thursday, six days ago…
No word yet on if that was accurate, but GP2 will be re-evaluated tomorrow and we should have more news and maybe more video as well.
Here are the notes, quotes and video from the Golden State Warriors’ practice at SMU yesterday, the day before tonight’s epic game at the Dallas Mavericks. The interviews were dominated by feature story writers’ questions and, ironically, one of them is writing about the load management of dunking and got some quotes from non-dunkers Steve Kerr, Stephen Curry and Klay.
Speaking of which, I’ve noticed that Anthony Slater doesn’t seem to be on this road trip, so it’s interesting where TheAthletic might be headed with beat coverage, but we’ll see. Let’s start with JACKIE, of course…
DISCLAIMER: These are all just notes for my main workflow of YouTube videos, mostly transcribed by me shortly after the interviews and during my coverage of postgame on our livestreams (!). Sometimes I’ll just use what’s tweeted by beatwriters, as listed. The links to the tweets are not available because sometimes I don’t use the full tweet and just having a ton of tweets on this website imo isn’t aesthetically pleasing and gets away from the main goal: transferring information (not so much entertainment) to the brains of DubNation asap.
• Klay Thompson after practice in Dallas, on answering questions about WSU and the Pac-12: “Nice. Those are welcome. Uh, I haven’t even thought about. It’s pretty sad seeing USC and UCLA leave but it’s the almighty dollar.”
• On WSU Women’s Basketball: “Cool to see those ladies come together and do something that will last forever.”
• On CJ Elleby, mentorship: “I got a soft spot for Cougs… had a lot of good pros coming through… special relationship… Pullman.”
• On living paycheck-to-paycheck as an analogy to the West standings race: “That’d be crazy (SMU in Pac 12). I thought you meant real life (living paycheck to paycheck), omg. I’m doing something wrong if that’s the case… injuries, guys out of the lineup… starting lineups… it’s fun… still controlling our own destiny.”
• On if dunking becomes more careful as you grow older: “Oh wow, that’s a unique one… It hurts if you don’t warmup… In your early twenties you can just walk up and do a 360. Now you need an hour… grease the wheels… be more wise how you pick and choose… you never realize how hard basketball is on your body… always an amazing feeling hanging on the rim… just to the common human, it’s a really hard thing to do. I didn’t dunk until I was fifteen years old.”
• On his dunk when he returned from injury on Jan 9, 2022: “That was the best one of my career, hands down. When I did that I knew I had a chance to go the distance. Like, ‘Oh, he’s back. He has no fear. He hasn’t played two-and-a-half years and he’s dunking on somebody?’ One of the best moments of my career, hands down. I kid you not.”
• On advice for non-dunkers: “you can still be great below the rim. Look at Steph Curry, he’s not really jumping over anybody. But he’s still makes magic below the rim… it’s called the English.”
• Steph Curry after Dallas practice on Donte DiVincenzo: “he just knows how to play basketball… pest on defense… savvy sense for rebounding… space… knocking down shots… especially when me and Wiggs were out… high basketball IQ… coming off his injury, he’s very motivated.”
• On the tight standings race: “inspiring and depressing all the same time… still feel like we can peak at the right time… don’t want to be in the position… checking the standings… but every year is a different challenge and a different narrative… we have to stay locked in on that.”
• On going on a run: “Doesn’t mean anything until we actually go out and do it… we can say we’re the champs… we can finish on a high note… do something special.”
• On Klay being a mentor to the young guys: “They respect Klay… fought back from his injuries… try to make it about basketball… early in the year… distractions… just enjoy the game… wisdom in there… connected with the young guys, JP especially… work you put into it and all that stuff matters.”
• On the Mavs: “We haven’t seen them with Kyrie but they play a very similar style before the trade… they slow it down but they also spread the floor… two guys create but they can create… get some stops and get out and run… battle of different spaces.”
• On dunking as a youngster to a veteran: “I have to ask the 2017 version of myself… maybe 2018… sporadic… ten times per year… very easy to move on from that.”
• On if he knows what happened fifteen years ago on this date: “Gonzaga game? Yeah it was pretty crazy… shameless plug: There’s an Underrated documentary coming out… learned a lot those three years I was there… what Coach McKillop poured into me… big part of my story… an inch shorter and 30 pounds lighter… Apple TV Plus come July. Gotta be a little patient with us.”
• On Poole: “Keep doing what you’re doing… he’s an extremely hard worker… high standard for himself… not being on that emotional roller coaster, not being results-based… the results will show… gonna be highs, gonna be lows… approaching the game the right way with your energy and your effort… dynamic guard in this league… stay on that track.”
• Steve Kerr at Dallas practice on Klay in mentoring role: “he hasn’t had to play that role. When I first got here he was one of the younger guys and we’ve always had vets. The last couple years he’s advanced into a different stage… elder statesman… two serious injuries… last couple months he’s grown more comfortable… do the right thing as a vet leader.”
• On the wild standings: “It’s fun. We’d rather not… Every one of them is crucial… it’s almost like we’ve started the playoffs… fight to the end… everything is a possibility. We could finish in the top six, four or five more can say the same thing, or we could finish eleventh… afaik unprecedented.”
• On if it’s harder to win fifty games: “Some of it is injury related… some of it is just parity… maybe some surprises in there… Utah… OKC… a lot of teams bunched together… the parity has been unprecedented in our conference.”
• On the SMU practice facility: “great spot… place for us to work.”
• On dunking, status symbol for younger players and later a physical toll, as a coach: “Number one, I never dunked as a player… I have no experience with it… you do see players as they get older maybe tone it back… aware of the physical toll… amazing the athleticism and leaping ability… and then they get in five or six years… I’m the wrong guy to ask.”
• On Klay dunking his first basket back: “a statement to himself and to the fans and to the league… that dunk meant something to him… I’m back… Klay’s not exactly the dunking sort… he sneaks in a dunk or two occasionally.”
👍👍💛💙