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00:00And I always love it when we get back to Warrior season and we get to hear this voice on the River Island's guest line.
00:05It's Fitz, everybody. Hey, my friend, how you doing?
00:08I'm doing great. How are you guys doing?
00:09We're doing fantastic. That was fun, huh?
00:13I'll tell you what, I mean, I thought the playoffs were in April. I didn't know they were starting in October.
00:18Seriously.
00:19I mean, open with the Lakers, open at home with Denver, like, man, talk about a high-level regular season game. That was fantastic.
00:27Well, actually, I'd love for you to speak to that because I thought one thing that was interesting down the stretch is sort of the want-to that Steph Curry and the Warriors group showed this early in the season.
00:42And once it got into overtime and the Warriors had the lead, it very much looked like Jokic was not interested in matching that intensity.
00:48Yeah, the thing about Steph and Draymond and Jimmy Butler and Al Horford is that if you think about lottery winners in life, you win the lottery, you don't work harder.
01:02You don't look for more money. You're just like, I won the lottery. I'm putting my feet up. I got 60 million bucks.
01:07These guys have all these accomplishments, and yet their compete level is so high that, yeah, they're like, we're not going to lose this game.
01:16I mean, Steph missed the layup, and then Aaron Gordon hits a three, and you're down three with 26 seconds left.
01:22You think, oh, they got you tonight? No. No, we're going to force overtime and go ahead and win it.
01:28I thought Jokic missed a couple shots that he normally makes.
01:32You know, that baby hook at the end, I thought for sure was going to be the game winner, and it rimmed out.
01:36And so sometimes that happens, but Aaron Gordon was incredible. Jamal Murray was incredible.
01:41Jokic still had a triple-double. You know, Steph, Draymond, Kamingo, Horford.
01:45I mean, there's so many guys that played well. It was just a great basketball game for both teams.
01:50Two elite teams in the West. Two teams are going to be heard from all year long.
01:54And they, you know, Denver had haunted the Warriors nine straight until the win in April.
01:59Now the Warriors have beaten them back-to-back, which is great.
02:01When you look at the end game, Bob, I don't want you to be too critical of a brand-new coach,
02:06but you call timeout and you let the Warriors get their defensive unit back on the floor.
02:10Shouldn't they have, might they have played that one a little bit late, differently late in the game?
02:15Yeah, the only thing that I always wonder, and I go back to, like, Michael Jordan scoring over Brian Russell.
02:22When the Warriors were up or down three with 25 seconds left, Steph Curry is going to shoot a three.
02:29I'm putting three guys on Steph Curry.
02:32If someone else hits a three, I shake their hand and go, hey, we're going overtime or whatever.
02:37But why teams continue to let the best players beat them at the very end is insane to me.
02:45Send multiple guys at somebody and dare a lesser guy to hit a wide-open shot.
02:50I just, I don't understand it sometimes in the NBA.
02:53But, you know, I thought David Alleman coached a really good game.
02:57I thought they had great ball movement.
02:58They kept going to Aaron Gordon.
02:59They run that high pick-and-roll, you know, with Jokic and Murray whenever they want to go home to mom type of thing.
03:06But as hot as Gordon was, I might have ridden a little pick-and-pop and kicked it out to Gordon.
03:11But, you know, calling a timeout and this team can sub in this, I mean, we're getting into kind of minutia.
03:16That isn't what decided the game.
03:17It's Jokic's shot rimmed out and Steph hit a shot from the ferry building that was incredible.
03:22So that's the beauty of it.
03:23I mean, it's the high-level games come down to, you know, a player two or a shot made.
03:27But, man, that was just a pulsating victory with the crowd just going nuts the whole time.
03:32You know the voice.
03:33It's Fitz with us here on Willard & Dibs 95.7.
03:36The game Warriors at Portland tonight.
03:39Got to turn right around and do this again.
03:41Fitz, I know we say stuff like this a lot, and it's only just game two.
03:45But you watched last night, and I was very much today inspired to say this, and I mean it.
03:53Fifty years on planet Earth of watching sports, I saw Montana, Rice, MJ, Tiger, Brady, whatever.
04:02To me, Steph Curry is the greatest thing I've ever watched when it comes to sports, just as far as a consumer.
04:10This is the best thing I've ever seen.
04:12What's your reaction to that?
04:14It's hard to argue.
04:15I mean, Michael Jordan would be up there.
04:18Walter Payton would be up there.
04:20Montana would be up there.
04:21But that's why I try to implore people, like seeing Sinatra or Elvis or Jay-Z or the Rolling Stones or whatever,
04:30please get out to see Steph Curry.
04:33I mean, just in your life, be able to say just what you said, Mark, is that I saw Steph Curry.
04:41You know, like I get to see Steph Curry all the time, and I never take it for granted.
04:44It's just that his like will not be seen again.
04:48He has changed the geometry of the entire sport.
04:52There's 8 billion people on the planet.
04:54He shoots the basketball better than anyone in the history of our civilization.
04:58Like, please do not let that go by in his career end where you never got to experience that or see him live.
05:05I mean, that is why going to a Warrior game on a Tuesday in February still matters because you get to see Steph Curry.
05:12You just never know.
05:13Mark and I have been joking all day, Fitz, about that being a Thursday in October,
05:17and yet here we are spending a whole show on a football Friday talking about a couple of 30-plus footers and an OT win.
05:23So I just keep waiting for it.
05:26I'm not hoping it happens soon, but at some point I guess there'll be slippage, Fitz.
05:31I mean, are we ever going to see this guy slip?
05:34I'll tell you what.
05:35I mean, you know, you think of Brady playing quarterback until 45 years old or whatever the hell it was.
05:41You know, these guys have extended things as much as – I mean, I love Jordan.
05:45I still think of LeBron.
05:47You know, yeah, well, you know, at age 40 and 23 years in the league and stuff like that, everything is being extended.
05:53We're seeing it all in sports.
05:54I mean, remember when a 50-yard field goal used to be a big thing?
05:57Yeah.
05:57Now guys just rope 60-yarders like they're nothing, and the Jacksonville guy hit a 71-yarder in preseason.
06:04Like, just our normal realms of sports are just being expanded and pushed.
06:09And so, Steph, I'm never going to be the person to say, well, you know, he's on the decline, whatever.
06:16Like, he just keeps showing every year that how many guys are better than him in the sport right now?
06:21I mean, he's in the top five, top six still, and has been for 17 years.
06:27I mean, it's really remarkable.
06:29Fitz, there's no way we should get through this conversation without getting your reaction to what you're seeing,
06:36Jonathan Kaminga's maturation.
06:38What stands out to you in these first two games?
06:42Well, it really started in preseason.
06:43His passing is better than it has ever been ever, ever, ever, ever in his career.
06:51You know, the Laker game, he has an open-court drive, and he finds Horford at point-blank range.
06:56He has a give-and-go, and he hits Draymond when he's posting up.
06:59Draymond, you know, on a cutting layup, instead of trying to bulldog Jamal Murray and go one-on-one with Jokic kind of lurking there.
07:05His awareness, his passing, his ability, and all young guys go through this.
07:12You get in the league, I want to score, score, score, and that's how I'm going to be famous and score.
07:16And then you realize, how can I impact winning?
07:20Scoring is important, sure, but rebounding and passing and defending and scoring is how you stay on the floor and how you impact winning.
07:28And I just think Jonathan's passing has been remarkable, and I think his rebounding, starting with that Laker game, you see multiple tall dudes jump up for a ball,
07:39and then someone elevate above all of them and just snatch it away, and you're thinking, yes, yes, this can be another part of his toolkit that just makes him a remarkable player.
07:52So, incredibly pleased with how Kaminga had the preseason and certainly the first couple games of the regular season.
07:58And even when he doesn't get the rebound, Fitz, he's in the mix, and he's getting the ball to be batted around a little bit.
08:04Perfect dibs.
08:05That's high-level noticing on your end, because that's exactly right, is that the effort and going for it, and I like the phrase, being in the mix,
08:14he's too great an athlete to just sit by and let Pajemski and Steph and these guys battle for rebounds when J.K. can have a big difference in all those plays.
08:23Yeah, he out-rebounded Pods, which is kind of cool.
08:25I mean, Pods is like the captain recycler who gets those rebounds.
08:29Hey, what do you think is a bigger factor for J.K.?
08:32Is it contract contentment or the Jimmy Butler big brother influence?
08:37You know what?
08:38I think I'm going to mash those together.
08:41I think Jimmy and Steph kind of started it.
08:44Hey, business is for the offseason.
08:47Basketball's for the in-season.
08:50I don't want to hear contract stuff.
08:52I don't want to hear business stuff.
08:54You know, all that happened, and now you're here, and let's just worry about basketball.
08:59And I think Jimmy's saying, look, I've been through tons of contract stuff, too, but just play good.
09:05It'll be good for you.
09:06It'll be good for the team.
09:07It'll be good for everybody.
09:08And you can't worry about six different things in your life all at the same time.
09:11Just worry about being, you know, the team loves him.
09:14I mean, that's the one thing about Jonathan.
09:15Steve says it all the time, too.
09:17He's a great kid.
09:18He's a good guy.
09:19Like, you know, that's the thing.
09:21Business sucks, you know, in sports for all of us.
09:24And so it's just one of those where let the business stuff go away.
09:27Just be a great basketball player.
09:28Be a great teammate and be in the mix of a team that really likes you.
09:31And I think that's where he's at right now.
09:33A couple things on the roster and the rotation, especially tonight.
09:37We know Al Horford is not going to play.
09:40Also, it's an early back-to-back with a plane flight and an overtime game.
09:45Like, how do you see the Warriors attacking a night like tonight?
09:49Yeah, I mean, three games and four nights is always weird.
09:52And then three games and four nights with the back end of a back-to-back and a travel on it and overtime.
09:57You know, this is not where Steve presses the accelerator on everybody's minutes.
10:03So it's great to get Moody back tonight.
10:06You're going to see Trace Jackson Davis get to play.
10:09Quentin Post get to play.
10:11I think, you know, Steph and Draymond and Jimmy, I mean, they want to win.
10:14So it's not like they're going to dip out.
10:16But Portland is athletic and large and gave Minnesota all they wanted the other night.
10:22So there's going to have to be some ancillary guys that have big games that they kind of kick in so the minutes don't have to have Steve run these main guys into the ground.
10:31So I think you'll see early substitutions and a longer rotation for a game like tonight.
10:36How do the puzzle pieces this year fit better than they did last year, especially once everyone gets healthy?
10:41Well, you know, it's more puzzle pieces, if that makes sense, is that, you know, this was, if you take the second half with Jimmy and you go 23 and seven or whatever, you know, then you add Horford and you're going to add Melton and you add Will Richard.
10:55And then you add another year on to Quentin Post and Trace and Kaminga and Moody and Pajemski.
11:02So I think with Jimmy, you saw this is how they can win.
11:06But now you're just adding a couple better players and Horford, you know, and then eventually Melton, but then just adding a year of service on to other guys that matter, too.
11:15So I think that's where they're they're kind of set up is that they got a formula.
11:20But nice thing is you want to play double big.
11:23All right.
11:23They'll deal with that.
11:24You want to play fast and run.
11:25They can deal with that.
11:26You want to play a perimeter game.
11:27Great.
11:28You want to grind it out and play defense.
11:29Like this team is kind of situated to kind of battle you in a lot of different ways with a lot of different skill sets.
11:36Bob Fitzgerald with us, Willard and Timbs, 95-7.
11:38The game fits.
11:39Like this is obviously, A, it's a good problem to have.
11:42B, it's not a now problem.
11:44Maybe it's not even a problem, but a lot of us were sitting around the other day kind of trying to figure out, based on what we've seen,
11:51what would Seth Curry's role be on this team when they bring him back here in a handful of weeks?
11:58What do you see as possible?
12:01Well, I mean, you can never have enough shooting.
12:04Never.
12:04And so, I mean, this is one where is Buddy firing on a given night or is Seth out there?
12:10Is Melton feeling good or do you want to give him a day or two?
12:13Is Steph on a back-to-back or he's played a bunch of games at a certain time and you don't have as many guard minutes there?
12:19Do you have to sit Jimmy in a game?
12:21And so your guard rotation gets a little different.
12:23It's just another weapon to have.
12:25And then the other one is end of a quarter, end of a game, I want to put three or four three-point shooters out there.
12:30You've got to guard Seth Curry.
12:32I don't care if he's played five minutes or he's been sitting there.
12:35This guy's a 43% three-point shooter.
12:38So I put Steph and Seth and Buddy all out there.
12:42Now teams have to make defensive choices.
12:44So I just think that's a great value add.
12:47And I'm really looking forward to Seth being here, not only for the brothers to be together.
12:52I love Seth as a guy.
12:53And I think it's just kind of fun.
12:55So they'll get around this apron stuff and this cap stuff and deal with it mid-November when they need to.
13:00But it's just another weapon with someone who chose to go somewhere to win like Al did.
13:06And that's where the Warriors afford guys later in their career now that there's a chance to come win.
13:11I love watching this team at the foul line.
13:12And I think Jonathan Kaminga is still a little scary, but in general, they're a great free-throw shooting team.
13:17And you guys were asking Jimmy in the postgame yesterday about his free-throwing.
13:21And just throughout that whole interview, he seems so serious.
13:24Is that really how Jimmy is all the time?
13:26Or is that kind of his front-facing media persona?
13:31It all depends.
13:32I mean, I think Jimmy can be serious.
13:34I think he can be funny.
13:34I was fooling around with him at breakfast this morning.
13:37Like, he's – whatever he feels like being, that's Jimmy.
13:42And he handles it all well.
13:43I think it was more like it's game two, let's not jump up and down and have a parade.
13:48And then I think because we had him do the postgame, he's always, you know, hey, you know,
13:52Draymond played great and Steph played great and Al played great.
13:55And so he's like, why are you putting a headset on me type of thing?
13:57You know, so Jimmy's just been fantastic.
14:00Like, people – you know, you have to judge people by when you interact with them
14:04and when you get them at their time in their life.
14:06But I think Jimmy is in the perfect spot, and we're so fortunate to have him on 52 levels right now.
14:12Bob, Steve has talked a lot so far about feeling like the puzzle pieces don't always fit,
14:19but they really do in his eyes so far.
14:21I think we're seeing that.
14:22I think we get it.
14:23But how would you compare the puzzle fit now versus the last few years?
14:30Different.
14:31Different because they never had a guy like Butler that doesn't turn it over,
14:35that gets to the free throw line, that you can post up, that can handle the non-Steph minutes.
14:41You know, so it's having another star there.
14:43Clay was always a star, but he was a perimeter shooter that, you know,
14:46if Steph got too much attention, kick out to Clay and have him score.
14:50But you can give the ball to Jimmy and run the ball through Jimmy,
14:53and then he's an excellent defender.
14:55And they've never had, really, a stretch five like Al and then having Quentin Post as well.
15:01I mean, a guy who was a three-point shooter, you had Otto Porter, and you had Bielitsa,
15:06and you had Ansarich, you know, the guys that could do that.
15:08But not at this level.
15:10Not at a five-time all-star like Horford, who's been all defense and stuff, too.
15:14So, you know, it's just different than the last couple years.
15:17But, you know, the engine is Mr. Curry and Mr. Draymond Green, and then Steve kind of pressing buttons,
15:23and they're going to be good.
15:24You know, that's the beauty of it, and that's the great thing for Dub Nation.
15:27It's 13 years of being amazing, and they've got a 14th season staring them in the face.
15:31Yeah, and so far, so good.
15:3282-0 still on the table, just saying.
15:35I mean, they won't go 0-82, we know that.
15:38But we've been raving about Will Richard around here.
15:41Mark Grandy and I got a chance to meet him in Summer League.
15:43How surprised are you at just how much he feels like he belongs so quickly?
15:51Here's the thing.
15:52What has happened with drafting in the 50s in the NBA?
15:57Like, we're going to see Tumani Kamara, 52nd pick.
16:01You've got Trace Jackson Davis, 57th.
16:03Quentin Post, 56th.
16:05Will Richard, 52.
16:06What about the value of these guys in the 50s?
16:10I know Manu Ginobili was in the 50s, too.
16:12But I think, you know, Cullen always makes fun of me.
16:16And I did this, you know, this one on the talk show time.
16:19I say this all the time.
16:20I like four-year college guys.
16:23I just do.
16:24I just think this league chews up and eats their young.
16:27You know, there's a reason Draymond is a winner.
16:30I just think that watching Tim Duncan go to school or Grand Hill go to school did not ruin their lives.
16:37Steph played three years.
16:38Michael Jordan played three years.
16:39The one and done, I get it money-wise and yada, yada, yada.
16:44But Will Richard is a grown man who played a lot of college basketball, played for an NC championship,
16:49and has come in as a rookie like, let me rebound, let me defend, let me run the floor, let me score, let me pass.
16:55Like, what a breath of fresh air just to watch a kid like that.
16:59And a grown, more of a grown man.
17:02You know, it's like all of us, where were you, Dan Dibley, Mark Willard, at age 18 versus age 22, 23?
17:08You're a completely different person.
17:10Yeah, I was still a junior in Cal State North, Bob, from 18 to 23.
17:14It was true for both of them.
17:15Yeah, exactly.
17:16Yeah, but just the pressure, the monetary pressure and the travel and just going against grown men, you know,
17:24on a nightly basis that have, you know, no idea, they ain't treating you kindly as a youngster.
17:28They're trying to take you to the woodshed all the time.
17:31So, yeah, Mike Dunleavy, that scouting staff from Pajemski to Trace to Quentin Post to Will Richard.
17:38I like Alex Toohey, too, by the way.
17:40I'm telling you, when you got, he'll play a lot in Santa Cruz this year.
17:42But you watch Alex Toohey, he's another very solid player.
17:46The scouting staff finds people, man.
17:47They've really put their work in and find guys that can play basketball.
17:51I'm glad you brought that up.
17:52I have this theory, and maybe it's not even a theory, Bob.
17:54I just think all fans think that their favorite team sucks at drafting.
17:59Because it doesn't matter who you root for, you're able to point to the misses.
18:05But I'm glad you're pointing this out, because if you look at what the Warriors have done the last few years
18:08without a lot of assets, it's pretty impressive that they've got rotational players there.
18:14Yeah, what I think is always funny about drafting is, you know, let's say the guy's the fourth pick in the draft,
18:19and like eight years into his career, they're like, he was the fourth pick.
18:22Who cares?
18:24Like, after day one, once you've been drafted and you're on the team,
18:27I don't ever care where you were drafted ever again after that.
18:30I care whether or not you can play, and if you're going to be a good player.
18:33Like, I'm going to watch Draymond Green tonight.
18:35He's a generational defensive player.
18:37I don't sit there and go, wow, he's the 35th pick.
18:40You know, 14 years later, I don't care.
18:42He's got four titles.
18:44He's an amazing player.
18:45And, you know, put the draft stuff behind you.
18:47Let that go.
18:48I just, people focus on it.
18:50They do it in the NFL, too.
18:51It's kind of, I never, you know, in Super Bowls, Tom Brady was a six-rounder.
18:56Like, let it go.
18:57Let it go.
18:59Bob, we're going to let you go.
19:01But we're going to do it again soon.
19:02Thank you very much.
19:03Great to have you.
19:04Great to hear your voice.
19:06Hey, on a game day, and then I've got to fly to Houston tomorrow for the Niner game on Sunday.
19:10I'm doing that for national radio.
19:12To talk to you guys, it would be one of the few people I would answer the bat phone for.
19:17So, glad to do it.
19:18Hey, you think the Niners have enough this weekend?
19:23Yes, yes, yes, yes.
19:25As long as they have Robert Sala, they're going to put together guys that know how to stop people
19:30and then just get it to McCaffrey and Kittle all the time, and you're fine.
19:33There it is.
19:34There it is.
19:34Safe travels, Fitz.
19:35Yep, safe flight, bud.
19:37All right, see you guys.
19:37Okay, there he goes.
19:38Bobby Fitz.
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