The Warriors are the one NBA team whose pregame activities are part of why you buy your ticket. The crowd around their tunnel before a game will never not be iconic. They are genuine rockstars.
The Warriors explain why their warmups are must-see basketball, too
They are must-see entertainment before games, too.
Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports
When warmups are over and the national anthem ends, Kevin Durant is the first player off the line. As his teammates make their way to the bench, KD daps them up in his own special way.
He then wanders to the paint underneath the basket, and that’s when the fun begins.
You might catch KD doing a specific dance
Durant, on rare occasions, performs an arrangement he used to do with former Warrior Ian Clark while teammates surrounded them. The dance is a sort of hybrid Walking Man meets Patty Cake dance:
“I do miss Ian,” Durant said with a smile before a recent game in Atlanta. “I guess that’s a lil tribute to him.”
“But that’s just routine for us now. We’ve been doing that for two years now. That’s cool that you caught that.”
KD isn’t afraid to mix it up, though. If you look closely, you might catch him doing something completely out of left field. Here, it looks like he’s washing a window with his left hand, rolling down a car window with his right, and bobbing his head:
And the pregame dancing is routine for the Warriors. It’s been taking place in some form since before they became light years ahead (shoutout Joe Lacob) of everybody else.
But none of those shenanigans were as organized as Durant and Clark’s routine. It was a pregame centerpiece for them in what ended up being a championship season.
Just about all pregame fun they do today is done on the fly.
“It’s just something that we do,” guard Patrick McCaw told me. “It’s who we are as players. It’s how KD get ready for the game. It’s how everybody get ready for the game. Everybody got they own little dance and routine and stuff like that.”
For easy-going vets like David West, the pregame dance routine doesn’t make a big difference. He’s not exactly a ra-ra guy, and that approach has led to two All-Star appearances and a decorated career. As long as it’s not broken, he’s not going to fix it.
“Guys have sort of figured out ways to get themselves going, so I think it’s one of those things,” he said. “Same thing with the handshakes [done before games].”
Other teams dance. Everyone knows this. But the Warriors’ pregame fooling has helped make sure an elite team is also a fun one. It’s part of their ethos.
“The energy and excitement — that’s just a part of the team,” McCaw said. “And everybody gets along and has fun together.”
They also find other ways to stay loose before the anthem
We know what to expect every night from the Warriors between tip off and the end of the game. The only variable is how they get there. But in pregame, we really don’t know what to expect from them.
There’s the pregame tunnel heave from Stephen Curry:
We’ve also seen Curry’s random ceiling-breaking underhand layup that darts though the net, where he skips to the basket and throws up a shot that looks like it will puncture the arena roof.
Durant’s celebration after one of those signature Curry layups is an added bonus here:
Sometimes the Warriors involve people not on the team. Durant used media members to weave before jumping out to the three-point line for a bucket prior to their Nov. 11 game against the Sixers:
Every team has little ways to get them through the drudgery of an 82-game season. But in an NBA that’s much more easy-going than the league your elders might want, the Warriors stand apart.
If you’re ever in the same arena as them, or catching them on TV, watch them closely before the game. These magical moments aren’t hard to find.
See More:
