{"id":119514,"date":"2025-01-22T18:00:16","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T23:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=119514"},"modified":"2025-01-22T17:32:52","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T22:32:52","slug":"andre-iguodala-warriors-kevin-durant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2025\/01\/22\/andre-iguodala-warriors-kevin-durant\/","title":{"rendered":"Andre Iguodala Gets Candid on Warriors Integrating Kevin Durant"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/d\/duranke01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-22_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Kevin Durant<\/a>&#8216;s decision to sign with the Warriors in 2016 marked a major turning point for the NBA. Turning villain overnight, the 2014 MVP found himself under heavy scrutiny. With many calling it a weak move, the Slim Reaper braced himself for a string of hostile situations.\u00a0In what looked like a re-run of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/j\/jamesle01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-22_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">LeBron James<\/a>&#8216; &#8216;The Decision,&#8217; one expected a lot of negativity coming KD&#8217;s way. Fortunately, the former OKC superstar had the full support of his new teammates, who were willing to go the extra mile to protect him from all the outside noise.<\/p>\n<p>Recently, appearing on The <em>OGs Podcast<\/em> with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/h\/hasleud01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-22_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Udonis Haslem<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/m\/millemi01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-22_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Mike Miller<\/a>, Warriors veteran <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/i\/iguodan01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-22_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Andre Iguodala<\/a> shared insights about Durant&#8217;s initial days in the Bay. The 2015 Finals MVP revealed how the roster took responsibility for protecting KD from all the jeers and trolling.<\/p>\n<h2>Andre Iguodala Gets Candid on Warriors Integrating Kevin Durant<\/h2>\n<h3><strong>Ensuring Swift Adjustments for KD<\/strong><\/h3>\n<p>Before Durant&#8217;s arrival on the scene, Golden State had already won a championship in 2015. Followed it up with a historic 73-9 season but failed to get the desired ending. Blowing a 3-1 lead against the Cavaliers in the 2016 Finals, the Warriors viewed KD as the missing piece.\u00a0Addressing the onboarding of Durant, Iggy had the following to say,<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;We had a special group. And I always say like, if it wasn&#8217;t for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/c\/curryst01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-22_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Stephen Curry<\/a> none of this would happen,&#8221;<\/em> revealed Iguodala. Echoing Miller&#8217;s take of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/08\/09\/durants-dynasty-climbing-the-usa-scoring-ladder\/\" target=\"_self\">KD being the greatest basketball scorer of all time<\/a>, the Warriors veteran talked about the squad&#8217;s intention to protect Durant at any cost.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LecAsrmoVIU\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>(Timestamp: 1:06:05)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We understood that we had to protect KD too. Like don&#8217;t let some folks come in here and try to you know break us apart. You know, over time they keep chopping, chopping, chopping&#8230; they&#8217;ll succeed at it. But we going to get what we got to get before they do that. And so with KD, it was like, man let&#8217;s make sure we take care of KD.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Iggy believed the unselfish mentality on the roster made things easy for everybody. There was a common consensus to give KD his iso looks and play to his strengths, keeping the long-term goal in mind.<\/p>\n<h3>The Warriors Dynasty<\/h3>\n<p>In his first season with the Warriors, Durant led the team to a championship, even winning the Finals MVP. Heading into the next season, the 14-time All-Star was well-versed in coach Kerr&#8217;s system. Going back-to-back in 2018, KD won his second consecutive title and Finals MVP award.\u00a0On the quest for a three-peat, cracks had begun to appear in the locker room concerning Durant. His <a  href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcsportsbayarea.com\/nba\/golden-state-warriors\/durant-draymond-explain-their-view-of-infamous-argument\/1139343\/\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">controversial on-court argument<\/a> with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.basketball-reference.com\/players\/g\/greendr01.html?utm_medium=linker&amp;utm_source=lastwordonsports.com&amp;utm_campaign=2025-01-22_bbr\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Draymond Green<\/a> was a major sign for things to come in the future.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, Golden State managed to punch their ticket to the NBA Finals, making it their third consecutive time. Looking to create history after the Lakers 2000-2002, KD&#8217;s Achilles injury in the finals against the Raptors forbid them from achieving this great feat. This also marked the end of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/11\/revisiting-steve-kerrs-honest-take-on-kevin-durants-warriors-era\/\" target=\"_self\">Durant&#8217;s\u00a0stint in the Bay Area<\/a>, who decided to sign with the Brooklyn Nets in 2019.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kevin Durant&#8216;s decision to sign with the Warriors in 2016 marked a major turning point for the NBA. Turning villain overnight, the 2014 MVP found himself under heavy scrutiny. With many calling it a weak move, the Slim Reaper braced himself for a string of hostile situations.\u00a0In what looked like a re-run of LeBron James&#8216; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5398,"featured_media":119606,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,25,62],"tags":[633,629,69,48],"class_list":["post-119514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-warriors","category-nba","tag-2016-nba-finals","tag-andre-iguodala","tag-kevin-durant","tag-stephen-curry"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5398"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119514"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119514\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":119607,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119514\/revisions\/119607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119606"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}