Longtime rival point guards Stephen Curry and Chris Paul are looking forward to their new status as teammates on a contending Warriors team this year, writes Jonathan Givony of ESPN.
“It’s a beautiful thing about basketball, you can’t write these narratives,” Curry said. “To go full circle, we’ve had a lot of battles over the years. He’s in Year 18, I’m going into Year 15, it’s amazing we have an opportunity to play together, and hopefully win at the highest level. He’s super competitive, and so am I.”
“I’m excited about Steph, Draymond [Green], Klay [Thompson], all the different guys, Wigs [Andrew Wiggins],” Paul said. “I’m excited for us to get together and see what it looks like. It’s just crazy how life works. But when it comes to basketball, I’m probably closest to my happiest. I’m obviously happiest when I’m with my family, but basketball is my safe haven; it’s been that way for a long time.”
Paul, a 12-time All-Star, was sent from the Suns to the Wizards as part of the Bradley Beal trade earlier this summer. The Warriors then traded for the 38-year-old as the centerpiece of its deal to offload Jordan Poole and some other young players.
There’s more out of California:
- The new-look Warriors will have to fight to stand out in a crowded Western Conference as they pursue another ring. Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area unpacks 10 key regular season bouts that he believes will serve as a critical proving ground for Golden State.
- After finishing with the West’s third seed while returning to the playoffs for the first time in 17 years, the revitalized Kings be featured prominently on national TV this season. According to James Ham of ESPN 1320 (Twitter link), the club will play six regular season contests on TNT, five on ESPN and 11 on NBA TV. Ham adds (via Twitter) that 16 of those 22 national bouts will be played in Sacramento.
- Kings All-Star big man Domantas Sabonis is looking forward to the NBA’s inaugural in-season tournament, as he told Kyle Irving of The Sporting News. “It’s another chance to win something,” Sabonis said. “In international basketball, these cups in the middle of the season are big. They mean something. And then history happens and it’s important. “I feel like this year, if people aren’t on board at the moment, once that first champion wins, everyone is going to be like, ‘Oh, I want that next year.’ It’s only going to get better and better.”
If the Warriors can stay healthy, they’ll be a really interesting and fun team to follow – good luck gents!
If anyone here wants to know how Monte Poole really is, he’s a former, longtime Tribune/ Bay Area News Group reporter who’s ALWAYS felt he is more of an insider than he truly is…and his years of “reporting” show he thinks more of himself than many informed and educated readers do
Whatever you think of Poole, he at least tries to be objective about the Warriors. The rest of the NBC Sports Bay Area “reporters” and analyssts (on the TV side and especially on their website/app) are nothing but embarrassing fanboys and fangirls.
Poole is the same way. It’s embarrassing.
Hot take
Kings end season with better record than the
Worriers
Luke warm…
Grizzlies lol
There are more active NBA years between Curry and Paul than the average age of a lot of teams…
Experience blah blah blah… Paul looked cooked last year…