Haven’t found my rhythm yet for after games, apparently, so this is mostly a digest and then notes from practice yesterday. As for the LA Lakers vs Golden State Warriors preseason game recap, I’m working on a detailed Xs & Os video that has exactly 100 clips in it. That should come out in the next couple of days and I’ll attached the pregame, in-game, and postgame notes and quotes to that one. The stuff below is in chronological order, catching up to news from Sunday and Monday…
EARLY SHAUN LIVINGSTON HANDLES
This was posted on Shaun Livingston’s birthday back on 9/11, but I saw it reposted over the weekend and had no idea high school Sdot had handles this amazing (you have to go into Instagram and swipe left to reach the highlight):
This past offseason, Livingston retired from his role in the Warriors’ front office and moved his family out of the Bay Area — I can’t remember if it was LA or Vegas. Here’s one of the last interviews he did:
GUI SANTOS YOUTH CAMP IN BRAZIL
Gui Santos, who will be back with the Santa Cruz Warriors this season after getting edged out for the last two-way contract by Jerome Robinson, had his youth camp in Brasilia, Brazil over the weekend:
Looks like they had nice jerseys made for all the participants. In the videos I saw (upload to YouTube forthcoming), he was pretty generous while defending the kids, letting them score, unlike the American/AAU way of blocking every little kid’s shot.
BOB/NINERS
Tim Kawakami of The Athletic had tweeted from the Laker game Saturday night that there would be a “solid contingent” of Warriors players and executives at the San Francisco 49ers game with the Dubs having the day off. Sure enough, former GM Bob Myers was there, but that’s the only guy there’s video of (forthcoming on YouTube in due time) that I saw, at least near the field.
LAMB FOR JESSUP, OF ALL PEOPLE
One former Warrior replaced another in Australia’s NBL: former two-way-converted-into-regular-contract Anthony Lamb took a spot opened up by former GSW 51st overall pick Justinian Jessup — remember when people on Twitter were overhyping him? — per Olgon Uluc of ESPN Australia (and Mike Scotto of HoopsHype):
Anthony Lamb has signed with the New Zealand Breakers for the remainder of the 2023-24 NBL season, sources told ESPN.
Lamb, who played 62 games for the Golden State Warriors last NBA season, will replace Justinian Jessup, who’s out indefinitely with a pelvic injury, sources said.
Jessup will get a CT scan on Monday (AEDT) to determine the extent of the injury, sources said.
Lamb will initially join the Breakers as an injury replacement for Jessup, but the plan is for him to remain with the team for the entire season. Lamb does, however, have an NBA out in this deal, sources said.
KLAY (BOBBLEHEADS) IN THE NYT
Klay Thompson as well as his bobbleheads got a near-full-page spread in the NY Times, thanks to a syndicated article by The Athletic’s Daniel Brown (The Athletic is owned by NYT):
BJELICA RETIRES
The oft-referenced (this training camp by Steve Kerr especially with Dario Saric now playing a similar role) Nemanja Bjelica aka “Beli” has retired, due to an injury, unfortunately. Details from Sportando:
Serbian forward has yet to make his debut for Crvena Zvezda after moving to Belgrade side from Fenerbahce in offseason
Despite one of the most discussed move of the offseason, from Fenerbahce to Crvena Zvezda, Serbian veteran forward Nemanja Bjelica is ready to retire as a player according to Teleport.
Belgrade side previously announced that Bjelica is out for the team’s first games to a calf injury, and the player has reportedly rethink his future opting to retire instead. Bjelica averaged 2.7 ppg in just 7 Euroleague games last season for Fenerbahce.
WIGGINS’ DAUGHTER AMAYAH BDAY
Stephen Curry and Gary Payton II attended Andrew Wiggins’ daughter Amayah’s Frozen-themed fifth birthday party this past weekend (probably Sunday, but I’m not sure):
Despite his guy Jordan Poole now residing in Washington, DC, photographer Jordan Jimenez seems to be keeping himself gainfully employed in the Bay Area, as he attended Wiggins’ event and took pics such as the one above. At least one of Wiggs’ sisters (he has five siblings) also attended, in town from the Toronto area.
Video forthcoming to the YouTube channel, but here’s a peek at the cake:
AUSTIN REAVES vs STEPH CURRY ⛳️?
The right-handed Austin Reaves teeing off perfectly, using a left-handed iron [tweet], makes me think he’s a damn good golfer, which means he’ll inevitably cross paths with Steph.
CHET vs WEMBY
Occasionally I’ll post non-Warriors-but-still-NBA-relevant news. Chet Holmgren and Victor Wenbanyama shooting pregame on opposite ends [tweet] might be the only pregame I’d want to physically drag my body to, to film (actually nah lol).
TRAINING CAMP WEEK 2
This week began with an unusually buffed-looking J-Rob, but then again we’ve seen certain snapshots catch athletes at the right angle when they’re flexing those biceps to shoot a shot:
Do you all remember when Wiggs had that pic of him looking pretty buffed and I asked him about it?
KLAY’s SHOTS AT THE RIM
Michael Pina of The Ringer took note of Klay’s percentage of shots at rim:
Since Thompson’s return from those major injuries, only 5.9 percent of his shots have come within 3 feet of the rim. That number dropped even further, to 4.6 percent, in last year’s playoffs. Some of this is due to an aging body and different personnel, but at his peak Klay aggressively sought back cuts, drove on hard closeouts, and had trust in a first step that could turn the corner off a pindown. In 2019, the percentage of Thompson’s shots at the rim was 13.8. The year before Kevin Durant joined the Warriors, in 2016, it was 18.2. Those aren’t humongous numbers, but they’re significantly higher than his recent output.
SCW AT CHASE, LOONEY BOBBLEHEAD
The Santa Cruz Warriors game on March 10th will be held at Chase Center. The bobblehead giveaway will be a “Longboard Looney” one:
TRAINING CAMP PODIUM
• Gary Payton, Sr. asked GP2 to go to the Niners game, but GP2 took a look at the blowout score at the time and decided to stay home.
• GP2 on how the Warriors approach defense, then also in the context of Brandin Podziemski as well as fellow on-ball fiend Chris Paul: “up here it’s like, gotta protect the rim (unlike college where it’s guy vs guy)… pickup the ball and declare ball… talk early and often.” Picking up ball makes the other team start offense with 14-15 seconds left on the shotclock, plus gets your defense set.
• On if he’s picked CP’s pocket or vice-versa (asked by Marcus Thompson aka “MT2”, of course): “No, we’ve been on the same team quite a lot.”
• MT2 brought a student guest reporter (he’s done this in the past) and she asked, after GP2 joked by mistaking her for Kendra Andrews, who was in the room and chuckled, “How is it possible you let H.E.R. beat you in a game of HORSE?” GP2 replied, “I didn’t know she had a little jumper, but I’m gonna run that back for sure”
• Kerr on Podziemski’s defense: “He just gets a ton of deflections… that’s one of the things our scouts really liked about him… knack for the ball… equally if not more important (than length or bounce).”
• When asked about Jonathan Kuminga saying postgame that, per his request, practice would be stopped if he wasn’t rebounding: they’re “stopping play immediately if we see something we don’t like… got to make improvements in a lot of areas.” So Steve was deflecting the attention of that question away from JK and onto the greater team. Asked if this stoppage of play is something new for this season only, Kerr replied, “We’ve had a lot of veterans here for a long time… we didn’t want to disrupt the flow of practice… (now,) we’re not only bringing along these young guys but trying to make change in some of our habits.” I’m sure one of those habits is the turnovers. And I wonder if there’s been a palpable change in the seriousness of practices whereby with Poole it was more like a carbon copy of Steph, kinda goofy, carefree and, you know, turnover-prone?
• Steve’s comment on Klay’s conditioning compared to last year was, “he really came ready this year.” What a difference an off-season of pickup ball vs no pickup ball makes!
• On cap expert Onsi Saleh: “he’s a really mellow guy… Mr. Cool, but… a lot of soul to him.” I personally don’t know much about him, but when I first met him outside of the Las Vegas Basketball Center in Summer 2021, he introduced himself to me, so I can kinda vaguely picture that “smooth” aspect. MT2 added that Saleh is “really smooth, like, ‘Hey, are you alive?’” — expect an article in The Athletic coming soon.
• Kevon Looney on the vibe so far: “a lot of teaching” and likes Usman Garuba’s energy so far, asked specifically about him.
• CJ Holmes of the SF Chronicle asked Loon about Podziemski’s three-point celebration, to which Kevon replied that it “needs some work” and that BPodz has to make more than one or two in a row to be able to celebrate. I like how Holmes remembers these fun details from games. That’s right up my alley.
• Looeny notes that “we got to probably start over again” when Draymond Green returns. And with the dearth of practices once the regular season starts, I expect a few extra turnovers in the first few games.
• I’d love to get more details on Kevon “setting my screens for (CP3) a little different.”
👍👍💛💙