News and Updates from Warriors Practice
The Golden State Warriors held media availability after practice today, with Coach Kerr giving some updates on a few of the players and their statuses for near-future games, as well as some words from the players themselves on how’re they’re feeling after exiting the NBA’s health and safety protocols. There’s a couple solid points of news on the Dubs after today:
The first is the status of Draymond Green, who was entered into the NBA’s health and safety protocols the day after the Warriors’ Christmas victory over the Phoenix Suns. Today, Kerr confirmed that Draymond Green was doing well and only experiencing mild symptoms as he isolates. With the league’s new protocols only requiring six days of quarantine or consecutive negative tests per new CDC guidelines on quarantine for vaccinated persons, Green should be eligible to return on the first day of 2022.
The next is Andre Iguodala, who was sidelined for an injury and missed the Suns bout on the 25th. Iggy, who’s been duking it out with injury over the course of the season given his experience in the league, apparently looked pretty solid at practice and is listed as probable for tomorrow. The team will likely continue to monitor Iguodala closely to ensure he’s ready come playoff time, but having him around for a few games nowadays certainly doesn’t hurt.
The Warriors had two players exit health and safety measures today, those guys being Jordan Poole and Andrew Wiggins. Poole, on the one hand, is listed as Out for tomorrow’s game against the Nuggets. The biggest question for Poole, who was quarantined in Boston for the last 10 days, is a matter of conditioning. The team says that he will continue to be evaluated and a return date will be given at a later time, but it shouldn’t be too far in the future.
Wiggins, on the other hand, was able to quarantine in the Bay and will be listed as probable. He was able to go through practice with the team today, and Kerr said that while he is listed only as probable, it is likely he will get some minutes (even if limited) for the game tomorrow. Wiggins does not appear to be having any issues with conditioning, although he was in the protocol shorter-term than Poole was.
Other than some returns and updates on the injury front, Steve Kerr dished a bit on Jonathan Kuminga’s fantastic play as of late:
“I'm really happy with Jonathan Kuminga's overall development. He's only been doing this for a couple months now and you can already see improvement, the awareness, the fearlessness. He's really a bright prospect” the head coach told media members today.
Kuminga’s been making some noticeable strides, namely a more consistent jumper and discipline on the defensive end. While he is still definitely a raw prospect who could use some time for development, he’s ahead of where most people likely thought he’d be at this point in his young career.
We were also able to hear from Otto Porter Jr. about what the team had learned from their victory over Phoenix. Porter Jr. mentioned that watching the fourth quarter film, it was easy to see how the Warriors were able to win as they stayed under control and made the right decisions, not necessarily taking avoidable risks and just picking their shots well. Of course, OPJ was one of the deciding factors in that victory, as he rattled off double-digits in the last frame to close out Phoenix when they went hard on containing Steph.
Overall, there was some great news out of practice today. As we near the New Year, we should be hearing more about when Klay Thompson will make his official return. Every indication is that he should be well and ready to go, and with the team starting to come back together after a rough stretch (which the Warriors somehow went 5-1 in), things are looking brighter in the Golden State than they were even just yesterday.
(Photo credit: Garrett Ellwood / Getty Images)