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00:00So let's go to Dan in Daly City.
00:01Hey, Dan, you're on with Willard and Debs.
00:03What's up?
00:04How you doing?
00:05I would like to say that Steph Curry is a blessing
00:09from the basketball gods.
00:10We are all blessed to have him here
00:14and on and off the court.
00:17If you're a lifelong fan, you know this.
00:20And if you're a newer fan, younger,
00:23unfortunately you will learn it when he's gone.
00:27No doubt about it, Dan.
00:29Dan, thank you very much for the call.
00:31I mean, we were talking earlier with regard to
00:34can you actually like fully understand the gravity
00:38until he's gone?
00:39I mean, maybe not.
00:42And maybe not even then.
00:44I just like, Steve said it earlier,
00:47the most unique basketball player of all time.
00:51I'm struggling to label the whole thing, man.
00:53You know, with Shaq's comments last night,
00:55we keep referencing it.
00:56We should let everybody hear him again.
00:57This is from TNT last night.
00:59As the supreme leader of the big man alliance,
01:02I demand you fans to start putting Steph Curry
01:05in that greatest of all time conversation.
01:07I demand it.
01:08Why does the big man alliance need to say something?
01:10Because I am the supreme leader and my voice counts.
01:12And I'm saying, listen, I played against Mike,
01:14played with Kobe, played against and with LeBron.
01:17They're all great.
01:18But at some point we're gonna have to put Steph Curry
01:21in that category.
01:22I'm not saying he is, but let's just have the conversation.
01:25Like, I like all the internet talking,
01:27the barbershop talk,
01:28but I ain't never seen nothing like that before.
01:30And nobody asked.
01:32There it is from Shaq.
01:33And you love it.
01:35You love that kind of talk
01:39when it comes from somebody who has,
01:42and I, no pun intended, that kind of weight.
01:44Yeah.
01:45Yeah, and it's funny when he says that
01:47because when Shaq came along,
01:49he was doing things that we had never seen before.
01:52Yes, we had seen dominant big men.
01:54Wilt Chamberlain averaged 50 points a game
01:56for crying out loud.
01:57So we had seen dominant big men,
01:59but when Shaq came in, they came up with a term to,
02:04and even a way of living to try to stop him.
02:08It was called hack of Shaq
02:10because you couldn't guard Shaq in the low block.
02:12And so all you could do is foul him.
02:14And he actually changed the game
02:16in a way that Steph Curry changed the game.
02:18Shaq was so dominant that they had to change the rules
02:21to prevent you from doing the things
02:24that they were doing to him defensively,
02:26where they would foul him before he even got the ball.
02:29And that became something where you got shots,
02:32free throws, and the ball out of bounds
02:35because the hack of Shaq was becoming
02:37such a problem for the league.
02:39Teams were just fouling him.
02:40So for Shaq, a guy who actually did change the league
02:43to talk about Steph in that same vein,
02:46it does have, to your point and your words,
02:49it does have extra weight
02:50because Shaq was a player who definitely changed the game.
02:54888-957-9570.
02:56Carter and El Cerrito next stop.
02:58Hi, Carter.
02:59Thanks for calling.
03:00Hi, thanks for taking my call.
03:03Believe me, I'm not surprised
03:06that Jimmy Butler made a difference.
03:09And if you look, where did Miami come from?
03:11How come they were in the playoffs?
03:13How come they were in the final?
03:15It was because of Jimmy Butler.
03:17And if you look at how come the Celtics
03:20didn't make it the year before last,
03:22it was because Jimmy Butler took them apart
03:24with about two minutes to play.
03:27So it doesn't surprise me at all.
03:29He stole the ball, he made a three-pointer
03:33and was fouled, and the Celtics didn't make it.
03:37So the Celtics had to change their whole team
03:40because of Jimmy Butler.
03:42All due respect, though, on this one, Carter,
03:45like, appreciate it very much.
03:47I think what you're saying
03:49is Jimmy Butler's really good at basketball,
03:51and we knew that.
03:53That's not what this is.
03:55I still find it totally surprising,
03:57and I think you're underselling
03:58what's happening with the Warriors right now.
04:00Because this isn't that simple.
04:02Just because you're good, like a really good player,
04:05does not mean you just go to another team
04:08and click and win every game.
04:10Is Kevin Durant good?
04:12Good player?
04:13Oh, yeah.
04:14Champion?
04:16Game-changing type player?
04:17Is Devin Booker good?
04:19Because they suck right now.
04:21Yeah, well, they're totally broken.
04:23Yes, but that's the point.
04:25Hell of a win last night.
04:27Yes, and thank you, sons,
04:29for that victory coming from behind over the Clippers.
04:32Down 23 late in the third.
04:33I guess was that the biggest comeback
04:36in franchise history in the fourth quarter?
04:38I was watching the game.
04:39That's what the sideline reporter said after the game.
04:42She grabbed Kevin Durant.
04:42She's like, that was the biggest comeback
04:44in the history of this team in the fourth quarter.
04:46And he said, who are you?
04:48His eyebrows went, ooh.
04:49He had a little moment where he was like, oh, okay.
04:50Who are you?
04:51Yeah, and then he said, who are you?
04:53And I don't remember who she was.
04:55But anyway.
04:56That's fine.
04:56Yeah, game over, sons win, good for the Warriors.
05:00But that's all I'm saying.
05:02I don't want to undersell it that way.
05:04Jimmy being good, this is so much more than that.
05:08To have this kind of chemistry at the snap of a finger.
05:11It's Jimmy being good
05:12and Jimmy making other people that much better.
05:15And I think that is the part that you can quantify,
05:17but you also can't really quantify it.
05:20And I'm just looking at some of the numbers
05:22since he's joined the team.
05:23You're shooting four more free throws a game,
05:26which automatically right there
05:28has led to five more points a game.
05:29Instead of 15 for 20 before Jimmy,
05:33now you're 20 for 24 from the foul line.
05:35So he gets to the line and you as a team
05:38are making more free throws
05:40and you were averaging 14 turnovers a game
05:43and now you're averaging just 12.
05:45So turnovers down, free throws up
05:48and confidence of the others, the role players,
05:52is at an all time high.
05:53Yeah, no doubt about it.
05:54888-957-9570.
05:56We'll keep taking your phone calls.
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06:14at the dealer.
06:14We asked this exact question that we're talking about.
06:16We asked Steve Kerr about it
06:18and this is kind of what his response was
06:23in terms of everything and how it's gone immediately
06:28with Jimmy Butler.
06:30There is a great vibe in the locker room
06:32and a lot of confidence on the floor.
06:35You can just feel it.
06:37There's a maturity to our approach
06:40that I think Jimmy has helped bring out
06:43of our team just in terms of taking care of the ball,
06:45making every possession count.
06:47He seems to make everyone around him better.
06:50I think Moses and BP, it's not a coincidence
06:53of their playing their best basketball of the season
06:56since Jimmy came back and Draymond's been fantastic
07:00and I think he's got a lot more confidence now
07:03in just having Jimmy next to him
07:06and the momentum of the group that we have right now,
07:10you can see it in Draymond's eyes
07:13that he's believing and that matters.
07:16That belief.
07:19I don't know how you can fully sit here and quantify this
07:25and so that's kind of why I just reacted
07:27the way I did to our last caller.
07:31To me, this goes so much deeper and at an emotional level
07:34than, oh, Jimmy's really, really good.
07:38Like, dude, Andrew Wiggins is a good basketball player.
07:42He's not Jimmy Butler.
07:44He doesn't inject confidence in other people.
07:47Like when Andrew plays, even when he plays well,
07:50I don't think that the way Andrew plays
07:52is the way that other people around him
07:56are gonna feed off of it and play better because of it
07:59and I think about the NBA Finals run in 2022
08:02when Andrew Wiggins had a game
08:04where he had 10 or 11 rebounds
08:06and Steph and Draymond both went out of their way
08:09in their press conferences to say, wasn't that awesome?
08:13That's the player that Andrew could be.
08:15I mean, if Andrew sets his mind to it, he could be that guy
08:18and yet Jimmy Butler doesn't need a pep talk.
08:20He goes into the locker room, he starts burning candles,
08:23he's wearing his unique garb
08:26and he's out there just doing his own thing
08:28and he's pulling teammates aside
08:30and you hear some of the coaches talk about it
08:32where Jimmy is immediately coaching up
08:35some of the younger guys.
08:37He's working with Guy Santos on his post defense
08:39and he hit the ground, he walked into the locker room
08:42and he wasn't waiting for permission to be a veteran
08:45or to be a coach on the floor.
08:47I just don't, I don't think that even those of you
08:51who were really immediately excited
08:53about the acquisition of Jimmy Butler,
08:56that you thought it would look like this.
08:58I mean, think about the words we were using
09:00when this guy got acquired.
09:03Those are the malcontent, 35 years old, right?
09:09Like this guy is not, he didn't wanna be here.
09:12These are the things that were being said three weeks ago
09:17and so for this guy to walk in
09:20and be having this experience,
09:22that's really what I come away with today.
09:25I look at this and I go for a year and a half now,
09:29those of us who follow Golden State Warrior Basketball,
09:33even those of us who want to be dreamers,
09:36even those of us who are the most optimistic minds
09:39out there, you had to have major questions
09:43about whether or not Steph Curry actually had relevant,
09:46meaningful playoff basketball in his future.
09:48Now it feels like a fait accompli.
09:50I don't know if they're gonna win any series
09:54but like dude, I think we're gonna get a series
09:57against like Denver or Memphis or something like that.
09:59Like we're gonna get that.
10:02I think it's likely that you get more than one series.
10:04We weren't gonna get that.
10:06We weren't gonna get that and now we're gonna get that.
10:08Well, we were gonna hope to survive the play-in
10:11and then if we did that, then we were gonna get that
10:13but now it feels like you're gonna get that
10:16and you might actually climb up to five
10:18and there's a shot you can get into that four
10:21and like you can really start to think about bigger things
10:24and you know, hosting game one of an NBA playoff series,
10:29right, it's not out of the question.
10:30No, it's not out of the question, not out of the question.
10:33Like right now, honestly, if,
10:36and I don't want you to get too far ahead
10:37because you're big and living the moment
10:39and I love that about you with 20 games left to go
10:42but if you found yourself as a Warrior fan
10:45in the play-in tournament, would you feel disappointed?
10:49If they ended up in the play-in tournament?
10:51Yeah, like right now.
10:53That probably means something happened.
10:56Maybe not, I mean, it still is a pretty thin margin.
10:59No, they're only, I mean,
11:00you're a half game up on the seven
11:01and you're a game up on the eight.
11:03Well.
11:04So, I mean, you can finish up the year going 13 and seven.
11:08But those are numbers and I know numbers are numbers.
11:10And numbers are numbers, yeah.
11:11But look at the teams who are sitting there.
11:13I get it but that's why I'm asking you the emotion of
11:16if you wound up as a seven seed.
11:18Yeah, that'd be a bummer.
11:19Okay, yeah.
11:20That'd be a bummer.
11:21And it's crazy to think where we were
11:22when we were sitting at Splash down in Thrive City
11:25when we were breaking down this trade in real time
11:28and I was hoping for Bethune-Cookman to cover on the scroll
11:31and we were thinking, oh boy, I mean, this might work
11:34but honestly, you're still probably gonna be a play-in team
11:37and who knows if disgruntled Jimmy Butler's gonna work
11:40and Steph's got the bilateral knee tendonitis
11:43and what are we even doing here, right?
11:44Yeah.
11:45And now here we are two weeks later
11:48and we're rightfully talking about
11:50maybe getting to the four.
11:51Well, I mean, and what we're doing now
11:53is listening to Brandon Pajewski say things like this.
11:56It was said on Stiney and Goo earlier today.
11:59Yeah, I think the six seed was the bare minimum
12:01of expectation of staff from us after the trade deadline
12:05and honestly, we're now, we're like three games
12:07behind the Rockets for the five spot
12:09and the three seed, I think it's only four and a half
12:11or five away and so we got the home of the Mars
12:14and a little bit of April left.
12:15It does have, we got a easy strength schedule
12:18in the Western Conference left
12:19and the teams above us gotta play each other
12:21a couple of times so someone's gonna lose
12:23and thankfully, Houston, we have the tiebreaker with them.
12:27I think we maybe have Memphis tiebreaker, I'm not sure.
12:31We're just trying to get as high as we can.
12:32The higher we can get, the more home games
12:33we can get in the playoffs, that's the goal.
12:35You know, Steve Kerr talks so much about confidence
12:38and you can feel it and hear it.
12:40I love it when you even hear commentary like that.
12:45Like, I love that the Warriors are not running
12:47from the idea of scoreboard watching.
12:49You don't usually hear that.
12:51There's a lot of teams that when you start getting
12:54to that subject, you know exactly,
12:56Durant did it last night, now the Suns are a mess
12:59and they're the 11 and they're not even gonna be
13:01in the play-in but what does that player or coach
13:05usually say when you're like, are you looking
13:07at the Rockets?
13:08Well, we're just gonna keep our head down
13:10and if we handle our business, you know,
13:11things will work out and we're not worried
13:12about other teams, you know, we're just worried about,
13:15you know, we're gonna take it one possession at a time,
13:16we're worried about us.
13:17We're gonna try to get a stop and then get a bucket
13:19and, you know, keep our heads down and just play ball.
13:21Funny that you're talking about Shaq today
13:23because he used to be famous for this.
13:26Go ahead and get your drip ready.
13:27When I was in the locker room covering those Shaq
13:30and Kobe teams, I used to interview Shaq
13:33on a nightly basis.
13:35By the way, it hurts your arm.
13:36He is a large human being and even when he would sit down
13:40for the interviews, there were so many reporters
13:43that you had to like snake your arm through three people
13:47just to get a microphone there and you had to get it
13:49real close because he mumbled.
13:50Okay, we get it.
13:51You covered Shaq.
13:52What?
13:53What?
13:54What?
13:55What?
13:55What?
13:56What?
13:57It's a four.
13:58Yeah, you get back to the station
13:59and that's what your audio sounds like.
14:00Great.
14:02That and you get a muscle pull.
14:03Exactly.
14:04Well, I guess we're not gonna fight that.
14:06No, we didn't because you're too big.
14:08So anyway, but back in those days,
14:11he used to use that line all the time.
14:15We do what we do, we'll be fine.
14:17I'll make the free throws
14:18when I need to make the free throws.
14:20Like he used to say that to everything
14:23and quite frankly, it's kind of a bore.
14:26I love that Steve Kerr's like going to dinner tonight,
14:29going to a Broadway show, keeping my phone on.
14:32The Grizzlies are playing.
14:34We're watching.
14:35Right.
14:36I love this.
14:37Pods is like, yep, we got the tiebreaker on that team.
14:39We'll go catch them.
14:40Got you over here.
14:41I think we can catch you.
14:43Good, good.
14:45That's what this team is so comfortable
14:48in their own skin right now.
14:50And they weren't.
14:51They weren't.
14:52Like six weeks ago, they weren't.
14:54Well, it was a crisis of confidence
14:56and if we go back even further than that,
14:58just how many days did we come in here
15:00and talk about Steph Curry at the podium after losses
15:04where he sounded sad and lost.
15:06Despondent.
15:07Right.
15:08It's like, you know what?
15:10It didn't really have the answer.
15:10Didn't know what the fix was.
15:12And they were talking about not mortgaging the future
15:16to try to make a big swing.
15:17And we all thought, okay.
15:19And I kind of agreed with it.
15:20And you were able to make this happen
15:22without mortgaging the future.
15:24You gave up a pick in the upcoming draft
15:26that is looking worse and worse for Miami.
15:31All of a sudden, Miami's not getting the top 15 pick.
15:34I think they're probably gonna be looking at a number 20
15:37in the first round.
15:38If things continue in this direction.
15:40Correct.
15:40And so, doesn't feel like you gave up that much.
15:43And you gave up Andrew Wiggins,
15:45but you've been trying to
15:46for the better part of a year and a half.
15:48And you gave up three rentals.
15:50Two rentals and a guy that you found
15:52off the G League scrap heap.
15:54So, not only did you not mortgage the future,
15:57it was kind of a garage sale more than anything
16:00where you advertise, hey, come get an Andrew Wiggins.
16:04And first of its kind, we have other things too.
16:07We got some old vinyl.
16:08We've got, I got a Nintendo that still works.
16:11I've got a bike, a kid's bike with one flat tire.
16:14Things broke their way.
16:15Yeah.
16:16The timing broke their way.
16:17Kevin Durant saying no broke their way.
16:19And so, yeah, it ended up being
16:22as cheap as it could have been.
16:25I remember in that moment, I'm like, ooh, first round pick?
16:28Hey, right?
16:29Cause it felt like Warriors might be a lottery team.
16:32And who knows?
16:34I still think that it's a little bit far-fetched
16:37to think that all three of these dudes
16:38are just gonna be happy-go-lucky, healthy guys
16:42for the next two months every night.
16:43Like, that does still feel.
16:45Yeah, and Jimmy's got the back issue.
16:47Jimmy's got the back and Steph's got the ankles
16:49and the knee and all of the stuff.
16:51So, like, it's not just all definitely gonna be perfect
16:55the rest of the way.
16:56But yes, it now feels like we're looking at a deal
17:01where the Warriors didn't really give up anything
17:03that they weren't completely willing to give up.