Andre Iguodala couldn’t consider himself blessed enough that he was an integral part of perhaps the greatest NBA team of all time.
The late 2010s era of the Golden State Warriors have conquered the league for a significant stretch, and Andre Iguodala was a key player of their dominance. The former Dubs sixth man perfectly lived up to his role as a swiss army knife, fulfilling the tasks of being the team’s main perimeter defender and occasional ball handler.
In his magical run with the Warriors, Iguodala is convinced that while Stephen Curry was the head of the snake, it was simply Kevin Durant who emerged as the most gifted of the group.
The arrival of Durant in the Bay Area have invincibly transformed the Warriors as an unbeatable team.
Already parading a 73-win season, Golden State became even more unstoppable upon controversially landing Durant in the 2016 offseason. And the superstar forward simply lifted them over the hump in outclassing LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers during their epic rivalry — courtesy of his back-to-back Finals MVP wins.
For this, Iguodala is quite mindful enough to acknowledge that although it was Curry who served as the face of the franchise and their dynastic run, Durant was meanwhile hands down the most talented of the entire special squad.
“We had a special group. I always say if it wasn’t for Steph Curry, none of this would happen. [But] KD is the best basketball scorer of all-time. Most talented basketball player of all time. I never seen anybody like this,” he said in an appearance on The OGs Podcast
“But I also had to say, Steph is the reason for all of it. If you don’t have Draymond who he is, if you don’t have Klay who he is, if you don’t have me who I am, none of it happens either. So we just had a special group. It’s like lightning strike in a bottle.”
It’s been well known that Curry and the Dubs have taken a major sacrifice to allow Durant to easily fit into their system upon his entry nearly 10 years. And for that, Iguodala is beaming with pride for how this selfless adjustment paved the way for them to eventually succeed and win championships.
Before Durant’s arrival, the Warriors have mainly applied a collective play style centralized around passing and ball movement. But as KD went to Golden State, Steve Kerr significantly altered the team’s playbooks by inserting isolations to maximize on his scoring wonder.
Durant might be the most talented, but Iguodala argued that it won’t all click for Golden State if it wasn’t for them activating their collective principles for the sake of winning.
“We are cool in our own skins because our peers get it, and that’s all that matters to us. With KD, no one has really talked about this, but we understood that we have to protect him too. Like don’t let some folks come in here and try to break us apart,” Iguodala said.
“We had a high IQ group in all of us from Steph, KD, Klay, myself, and Shaun Livingston. Me and Shaun coming to the second group, we make sure that we get Klay his looks. But if KD got it going, move out of the way.
“He made our lives easier, but we wanted to make his life easier. And I think that is the epitome of what a championship team should look like.”
Related Topics
