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NBA FINALS: CLEVELAND VS GOLDEN STATE

May 31, 2017

Richard Jefferson

Oakland, California: Practice Day

Q. What's the most excited you have ever been to ever watch a sporting event, even as a kid?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Man, that's tough. I grew up in that '90s era with Michael Jordan and those guys. I remember the Olympics, some of the Final Four games. That was the UNLV era, the Fab Five era. There were some really high-level sporting events in that mid-'90s that I just grew up looking forward to watching.

Q. Is it kind of amazing to you to be part of a series that a lot of people are going to view you in that same light?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Oh, 100 percent. The fact that we get to play basketball, the fact that you never lose sight of how blessed you are to play this game that you grew up watching and idolizing, and then to be a part of its history, to be in a Game 7 last year, to win a championship and then ultimately to be a part of the series now that is the first [trilogy], 24-1 [combined playoff record this year], that to me is amazing. So you never lose sight of that and you just try to enjoy the moment and try to finish it off.

Q. Why did you come back this season?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Just because the great group of guys that we have. I think if you look at our camaraderie, the way our team gets along, just the amount of guys that we have that really enjoy each other and what they do, I think that made the decision very, very easy.

I wanted to go away, trust me. I wanted to leave on top. That was the greatest series that I've ever been a part of in my life. To win a championship in my 15th year, there is no better story. I think this adds to the story, especially if we're able to accomplish our final goal.

Q. On the flip side, David West is trying to kind of do the same thing in his 14th year.
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Yeah. As a team, we don't want him to accomplish his goal. But, no, it's something that I think you've seen this for years. I think this is a part of the evolution of an athlete. You want to get here, you want to establish yourself as a player, you want to try and make enough money where you can change your life, your family's life, you want to win games, you want to go to All-Star Games. You want to do that.

And then at the end, if you haven't been fortunate enough to win a championship, that's really what's left for you to accomplish within this sport. I think you see it in baseball, you see it in football, you see it in basketball, you see it all over. You've seen it for years. You've seen Charles Barkley join the Houston Rockets. You've seen so many different players over the course of their last two or three years trying to contribute to a high-level team and see if they can just win some games.

Q. As a fan, with LeBron and KD going against each other, which seems likely, how much do you enjoy something like that, two players of that magnitude?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: Well, I think you see their abilities are so different but both so dominant. KD with his size and his ability to shoot and do so many things. And the only person that you might feel can even guard him is LeBron. But on the same end, his length also is something that can bother LeBron.

So I think to get those two guys that have won MVPs against each other in the prime of their career is something that I think we all should just kind of relish and enjoy.

Q. K.D.'s length and LeBron's strength and the way they play is very, very different?
RICHARD JEFFERSON: It's very, very different, and they're both very dominant. Coming from a person who has guarded both of them in years that they won the MVP and had to start against them, it's not a very fun matchup. I think that it's something that as competitors, both of them, they look forward to that opportunity to go against each other.

I think there's a mutual respect. Pop [Gregg Popovich] used to call it appropriate fear. You're not scared of your opponent, but you also understand what he can do if you're not focused. So I think there's going to be a lot of that going on.

Q. They said the way they lost made them better. It just gave them something to focus on and work on.
RICHARD JEFFERSON: I agree. I think it also gave us a level of confidence that probably hasn't been found in too many places. We know that when our back's against the wall, when we need to be closed out, we can be a very, very difficult team.

I feel like we have gotten better. We're replacing Delly [Matthew Dellavedova], who was a great player for us. We're replacing him with Deron Williams, a two-time All-NBA player and a [three]-time All-Star. We replaced Mo Williams with Kyle Korver, arguably the best shooter of our generation. Now, Klay and Steph are right there and KD's right there, so there's no disrespect to them. But I think even them, they look at Kyle Korver like, damn, the boy can shoot it.

You're adding guys in the prime of their career to a team that won a championship. So, yes, they added Kevin Durant; I think we added some depth. I think both teams are better. I think that's what makes the series exciting, and I think that's why we both met up here with the records that we did.

FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports

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