|
|||
|
|||
|
 |
|
|
GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 28, 2015Andre IguodalaOakland, California Q. Andre, can you describe the difference in mentality? I don't know if you guys have talked about it before today, but the difference between it being the hunted versus the hunter, because everybody will be shooting for you guys this season as defending champs? ANDRE IGUODALA: I think it will be something we're going to have to see a few times. I think it was starting to happen last year towards the end of the season based on how we started out, but definitely after kind of solidifying our stance in the league as far as winning the championship, we'll be the targets. So I don't know if I can say what it will be like because the season hasn't started and we're just kind of fresh off the win. So I think we'll get a taste of it in preseason a little bit and it will carry over into the season. But I think we'll adjust well. Q. You guys didn't have any series that went to a Game 7 during the playoffs, but you still had a benefit from home court. In a stacked Western Conference, how important do you feel having home court is, and how much does that drive your motivation for the regular season? ANDRE IGUODALA: I think it's important for us. It was one of our main goals throughout last season was to take care of home court throughout the regular season, and I think we did a really good job. We only lost one or two games at home. So we did what we had to do. We've got a really great environment at home to play in, and I think we did a good job of taking care of business and not having any slip-ups because you can have that with our type of crowd. You can get so comfortable and you can kind of take it for granted. I think we did a good job last year of doing that, and we've got to carry it over to this year not having any mental lapses playing at home. Q. Andre, Coach Kerr has talked about once you win a title that weight kind of comes off your shoulders. Then the next thing is to see if that competitive edge is still there. How do you go about keeping that edge now that you do have a title? ANDRE IGUODALA: Well, I definitely think that weight is kind of off your shoulders. You're a little bit more relaxed. But I think you kind of have more of a business outlook on everything, definitely from me coming into this year, just handling business, night in and night out. Getting the most out of the time we have in the gym. You've been through it. You know what it takes, so I've got to try to have fun, because I think I'm in too serious mode right now. But looking forward to the season, being around the guys, going up against the challenges that we'll have to help us grow and be a better, more mature team. Q. I'm wondering, are you following the contract situations with Harrison and with Festus the same way you were closely paying attention to Klay's last off-season? ANDRE IGUODALA: To whose? Klay's? Q. Yes. ANDRE IGUODALA: The difference with now and Klay's are the numbers are so big. You don't pay attention to it, because you know the guys are going to be taken care of, regardless. I'm definitely looking forward to helping. We've got a couple guys. We've got Harrison, definitely looking forward to helping him coming out of his contract, same thing with Festus, definitely looking forward to helping him. Festus I'm going to help out a lot. He's a big man. Doesn't have those huge numbers being thrown at him, so there can be a huge gap where he gets paid. Harrison's numbers are so large that it doesn't really matter. Rich is rich, he'll be fine, but an extra basket or two could help him. So I hope he's close when I'm by myself on the break. I'll be sure to toss it back to him. But Mo Speights as well, in a contract year. Shaun Livingston in a contract year. We've got veterans like Ben Gordon. I've been working out with him the last week. I think he's going to use his career to kind of get another long deal. So that is the great thing about this team. We've got a lot of guys looking to prove themselves and kind of show everybody what they can do and get a lot of offers. That is always the fun part. I never look at that as a negative. That's just an opportunity for guys to come together more and build with their teammates. Q. Andre, last year there were times, especially early in the season, where you guys on offense would hit certain stalls, certain bumps and so forth. It got better as the season went on, obviously. But I was talking to Luke the other day, and he said even though you guys were winning 67 games, the thought was next year you could be better in the offense. Talk about the offense, the evolution of it, and what you expect this year in the second year? ANDRE IGUODALA: Well, this year the offense, you look at the Atlanta situation. You can probably explain it best using them as an example and how two years ago they kind of started with Bud and they were trying to get the offense. And this year it was coming together a little quicker. Then they added a lot more movement into it because guys had been in the system for a while, so it ran much smoother, and you saw the type of season that they had. For us, I think it's similar. Then I look back to preseason last year, and we put in the opposite, which is triangle. We put it in for like two hours and we struggled with it a little bit. I was laughing at Steve like the first and last day we use this, huh? And he said, yeah, we'll try it next year. So looking forward to putting that set in this year which is going to make us that much better as far as the options and using the different weapons that we have on our team. Q. You mentioned the other day you went to Germany for rehab. I was curious, did you have a procedure or another injection there? Also just how does your knee feel overall? Have you been having -- last season it didn't allow you to work out, is it feeling a lot better this year? ANDRE IGUODALA: Yeah, I went to Germany and got some injections done. It was really cool. It was really safe. I was still working out every day whereas when I did it back here at home, I was out for a couple weeks on crutches. So there I had a guy, Drew Yoder went with me from the training staff. We played golf every day and rehabbed and got the injections, so that was a fun trip. The knees feel really good. So, I've been dunking a lot lately, which I normally don't do in the off-season. So really excited to be healthy and stay smart and being on top of things and trying to play 82 games. Q. Has Steve come to you with the bad news that you're back out of the starting lineup? ANDRE IGUODALA: No, we haven't talked about that much. Steve looked dead the last week or two with the back surgery, so we try to keep everything in kind of good spirits. But we've got a lot of depth, really look forward to using it. We've added even more depth, so I'm excited with what we're bringing to the table this year and getting new guys acquainted. Kind of getting our groove right where we left off. Q. As a savvy veteran who has probably been through a few of these Media Days before, how would this compare in terms of energy, excite, interest? ANDRE IGUODALA: For me or the other guys? Q. For you. ANDRE IGUODALA: For me, same old. We're just trying to get through everything pretty quickly. Trying to stay positive because you can get bored a little bit. Then just try to have fun. These things, they're the same every time. Nothing different. Q. When you look at your team's 67 wins last year, how vital is Klay Thompson to the team as a whole? Is it out of the question that he could be an MVP this year? Is that out of the question? ANDRE IGUODALA: For Klay I feel like he had his first three months last year were awesome. Then as the season went on I think he wore down a little bit, mentally more than anything. I think he was just trying to get with himself instead of just letting it come to him. But I'll take the good of that where he holds himself to a high standard, wants to play at a high level, wants to be the best shooting guards in this league. So each year as he gets older, he's going to be more mature. He's going to understand the game a little bit. He's going to understand the game easier for himself so he doesn't burn out once February, March comes around. I'm definitely looking forward to continue to build with him. He really only can take a step forward coming from where he left off a bit. So I'm sure he definitely wants to prove himself. He's got a lot of money coming in this year, so we have to be careful of that. So we'll be sure to be on top of him. He's doing what he needs to do. Q. Andre, can you elaborate a little bit on what the addition of Ben Gordon could mean at the back-up too? ANDRE IGUODALA: Yeah, I've been working out with him the last week or two at night. I know Steve Kerr was looking for a shooter over the summer. He had a few names out there we were going to try to sign. They ended up getting big deals based on the season they had last year from other teams. I ran into Ben in Vegas, and we had a sit down. We spoke for about 15, 20 minutes on his mindset and what he was looking forward to, how he changed his diet, got back down to his high school weight. I just thought his mind was in a great place and he could be a great addition for us. People tend, when you're not on a playoff team, the casual fan tends to forget about a guy like that. I believe two years ago he put up 50 I want to say. Two or three years ago he had a 50 on the Denver game. I still see it in him, working out with him. With our team and the weapons we have, he's not going to be able to get as many shots as he had on a team like he played with in Chicago. But he understands that. As you get older, you understand winning can help you as a veteran player with just extending your career. It gives you a better perception of you when you're going through free agency as you get older. So he's in that right frame of mind, and I think he's looking forward to trying to help us out in any way possible with shooting the ball. Q. You mentioned being a veteran that you've had a good, long career, ditch roles and different teams. How did it change your life to win a title and Finals MVP kind of came out from the reserve role and really starting that series? How did it change your life in this off-season and how was it different? ANDRE IGUODALA: My son has higher expectations for me, so that is the curse of that. He's like you're going to win it again next year. He doesn't really get it. But nothing really on the court because I've been playing ball for so long pretty much my whole life. It's been about 28, 27 years of basketball for me. On the court I understand it. Off the court winning the championship can help you in many different ways, especially in business. There is a direct translation from how a team is built and how you sacrifice to the business world, and I've been trying to get into that in the latter stage of my career and making that transition and meeting the right people. So it will help me for the rest of my life. So it was a great achievement. Q. Just wondering, you mentioned hanging out with some of the VCs and things, so what is your investment strategy, and what are you advising some of the younger players who are getting their first taste of maybe some of the bigger dollar contracts? ANDRE IGUODALA: Yeah, I've had some interesting meetings and lunches this summer that were really informative and gave me a lot of knowledge. Main thing for the advice I give to the guys is to be smart and knowing what you're getting into. That's more important than anything. Doing a lot of reading. It's just like the basketball world. You've got to study your craft. You've got to know your competition, know your strengths, your weaknesses and your opportunities I think it's called swat in the marketing world. So having the right team around you and just being smart. If you're taking it as serious as you take the game of basketball, you'll have success. Q. If you are the sixth man again, how prepared are you to take on that role again? ANDRE IGUODALA: Oh, you learn how to embrace it, and when you embrace things, things tend to work out in your favor. So I've been through it for a year, I understand it a trillion times more. So definitely more comfortable. I'm actually looking forward to it. The approach now is being the sixth man, I was taking it out on the starters in practice last year where now you take the approach to the other team because it's a lot more comfortable. I think Shaun Livingston was awesome in the playoffs for us last year, especially in The Finals. So he and I got more comfortable on the court. We were always comfortable with each other, but we were more comfortable together, splitting the ball handling duties. Then we've got an awesome shooter in Ben Gordon and Barbosa, we were starting to gel as well. Just the depth we have in our front court now with Marreese Speights, Festus and Justin Thompson, we've got a really solid group. So really looking forward to playing with those guys. Q. (Asking about the Sixth Man award? ANDRE IGUODALA: I'm not a fan of the award, actually. I don't know. I don't know. A lot of sixth man have more responsibility and they've made more of an impact sometimes than 80% of the rest of the guys on the team. So it's just a name. But just as important as any other guy, so I don't think you can single out that. It's the MVP, and then sixth man is just like whatever. But if I got it, it would be something pretty cool having the career I had and then being able to embrace something different that's normally not accepted or thought of as cool by guys who have started their whole career, been MVPs, in The Finals of the regular season, played in the Olympics or have been All-Stars. They shy away from that. So the sixth man the position I don't have a problem with, but the award, it's not that it's not important, but being singled out, it's like affirmative action or something like that to me. So it's like whatever. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
About ASAP Sports •
FastScripts Archive •
Recent Interviews •
Captioning •
Upcoming Events •
Contact Us
FastScripts | Events Covered | Our Clients | Other Services | ASAP in the News | Site Map | Job Opportunities | Links |
|
ASAP Sports, Inc. | T: 1.212 385 0297
|