Category: Golden State Warriors

Warriors beat the LA Lakers in Pre-season game

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by Jerry Feitelberg

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, left, and Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant battle for a loose ball during the first half of a preseasonGolden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry, left, and Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant battle for a loose ball during the first half of a preseason basketball game, Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill) ( Mark J. Terrill )

The Golden State Warriors played their second pre-season game of the year against the Los Angeles Lakers Thursday night at the Staples Center in LA. The Warriors were led by Klay Thompson as they beat the hated Lakers 120-105. Thompson scored 20 points in the first half and ended up with 25 total playing just 25 minutes of the game. The other half of the Splash Brothers, Steph Curry scored 20 in his 27 minutes of work and the Warriors cause was helped out by David Lee with 12 points and 4 assists. Andrew Bogut had 4 points,6 rebounds,four assists and four blocked shots, Harrison Barnes contributed 11 points and his play was much better overall Thursday night. Brandon Rush, trying to make the team again, had 8 points and was on the floor for 16 minutes.

The Lakers’ aging superstar, Kobe Bryant had 15 points for the game but Carlos Boozer led the club with 16. Bryant said this about Thompson”he has the whole package.”

Former Laker great, Jerry West, an NBA Hall of Fame member and an executive Board member of the Warriors said this about Klay” I talked to some people who were involved with USA basketball, and they loved him, absolutely loved him.”

Game notes- the Warriors and Klay Thompson are working on an extension but they are 2-3 million dollars apart at the present time. Thompson is in his third year in the league and has improved each year and the club would like to get the contract settled by Halloween. If they don’t agree, Thomson will become a restricted free agent meaning that the Warriors can match any exorbitant offer sheet he sign with another team in July 2015.

Andre Iguodala suffered a broken nose just before halftime but is expected to play Sunday against the Lakers in Ontario.

The Warriors committed 14 turnovers which was a big improvement as they turned the ball over 23 times against the Clippers last Wednesday night.

The Warriors will have an open practice from 6-7:30pm October 23rd at Oracle Arena. Parking and admission will be free.

Kings downtown arena: Judge tosses out most of arena opponents arguments project to continue

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by Jerry Feitelberg

SACRAMENTO–Donald Mooney who represents Sacramento for Shared Prosperity said that his group who has no problem with the construction of the Sacramento Kings arena now under construction at Downtown Plaza. Mooney has stated that his group opposes the public subsidy of $250 million being spent out of the city coffers for the new Sacramento Kings digs.

Opponents say the city’s attention to environmental issues such as noise, traffic, pollution and other California Quality Air Act are issues that the city needs to address regarding the arena in the neighborhood. Sacramento Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley threw out most of the Kings arena opponents arguments last Thursday.

Meanwhile lawyers representing the Kings and the City say that the opponents had other ulterior motives and that using the CEQA air act was just a smoke screen for other agendas. For example plaintiffs for the Coalition Shared Prosperity were more interested in getting the city to spend $40 million for in affordable housing near the arena site.

Former Caltran director Adriana Saltonstall was interested in raising the “secret subsidy” issue with the court that the City Council used public monies to fund the new arena $255 million. Saltonstall said that this money was not earmarked for such a project but for public funding of the city.

On affordable housing Frawley ruled that CEQA had nothing to do with affordable housing. Saltonstall’s arguments that there would be post game rioting in downtown and that the project would encroach on Old Sacramento business were thrown out. The two CEQA lawsuits that would have brought an injunction to stop construction of the arena was tossed out in July and filed again and it looks like it will go down to defeat as Frawley has struck many of Saltonstall’s points about riots and the new arena would encroachment on Old Sac business.

Frawley did leave it open to hear about traffic impacts on sold out nights at the arena and how traffic would impact downtown when there will be more seats sold when the Kings are not playing at home that would exceed 17,500. Saltontall said that there would be outside events that would draw huge crowds, concerts and other shows that could exceed the 17,500 mark that would create nightmarish traffic conditions in downtown.

The arena is set to open two years from now on October 2016, the Kings and the City are looking at two other lawsuits that are pending one opponent wants to challenge the subsidy and in the Southeast corner of the plaza the owners are arguing over the price of the building that housed the old Macy’s Mens department. The groups that are tussling over the sale of the property are CalPERS and co-owners of U.S. Bank represented by their lawyers.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developments for the Sacramento Kings and the Golden State Warriors for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Photo credit: google images

The Warriors Win the Pre-Season Opener

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by Jerry Feitelberg

The Golden State Warriors played their first pre-season game Tuesday night in Los Angeles against the Clippers and won 112-94.

The game, as one might expect, was ragged at times but the players are trying to fine tune their game and so play was sloppy. The Warriors had their first unit of Andrew Bogut, David Lee, Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala start the game, Lee played most of the first half and had 11 points.

Curry and Bogut each scored 10. The Clippers’ Blake Griffin led his team with 18 points at the half and finished with 24 points for the game.

The Clippers had 57 wins last season and they have added Spencer Hawes who is seven feet one inch tall to back up DeAndre Jordan at center. Both men looked to be in great shape and should be formidable opponents this year. J.J.Redick, Chris Paul,Matt Barnes round out the starting five for LA and Jamal Crawford, the NBA’s 6th man of the year, came out blazing off the bench. Glen “Big Baby” Davis is another physical force that the Warriors will have to deal with again this year.

Back to the game- The Warriors led 56-52 at the half. Steph Curry fouled out with 7:13 left in the third period but Klay Thompson filled the void as he picked up his game and scored 12 points in the third period and finished the game with 20. Draymond Green and Harrison Barnes as well as Leandro Barbosa saw considerable playing time. The Warriors played the fourth quarter with most of their reserves. Marreese Speights, Nemanja Nedovic, Justin Holiday and James Michael McAdoo all saw quite a bit of action as the W’s won by a final score of 112-94.

Warriors Media Day

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by Jerry Feitelberg]

The Golden State Warriors held their annual Media Day Monday at their headquarters in downtown Oakland. They currently have eighteen players on their roster and will have to make some cuts to get to the roster limit. Players cut may go to the “D” (Developmental League) or be picked up by another team.

The Warriors made most of their players available for interview and I was able to talk to Draymond Green who has improved each season he has been with the Dubs and is looking forward to his third year in the league. Green played especially well in last year’s playoff and is looking forward to the new season and working with the new coach. He said the “Coach Kerr is about building relationships” and that he was “getting to know him” and that he is a “great guy.”

Green spoke about working hard over the summer to improve his shooting. He also said that the addition of Shaun Livingstone and Leandro Barbosa in the backcourt will really help the team. He said each player has a totally different game but they are overall good basketball players and that they are going to help the backcourt a lot.”

Third year forward Harrison Barnes was at the next table. Barnes said that”last year was a difficult year” for him but he is optimistic his game will improve this year. He talked about Coach Kerr and felt that since “Kerr played in this league” that he(Barnes) was getting a “feel for his system.” Then he said that the team “will be playing at a fast pace.”

Was able to meet with Marreese Speights who is in his second year with the Warriors and seventh in the league. Speights is a role player off the bench and made significant contributions to the team during the regular season and the playoffs. Speights was hoping to play 17 to 20 minutes a game this year.

As the crowd thinned out, I was able to get a picture of several of the players and at 2 pm the gym was cleared as the players went off to practice.

Was able to say hello to David Lee, Stephen Curry, Andre Iguodala and got pictures of those players. Got a picture of Klay Thompson but didn’t get a chance to say hello.

The players are excited about the upcoming season and are really ready to go now but they still have to learn Steve Kerr’s system. Kerr played for Lute Olsen in college and won five championships with coaches Greg Popovic and Phil Jackson. Let’s hope that Kerr can bring his knowledge of basketball and winning to the Warriors. The Warriors have made the playoffs the last two seasons and there is no reason not to believe that they can’t win an NBA championship.

This could be their year.

Warriors arena at Mission Bay: Dubs want to put a lid on toilet bowl arena blue print comparisons

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by Jerry Feitelberg

SAN FRANCISCO–After releasing sketches of their latest design for the new arena at Mission Bay that looked like a drawing of a toilet with the seat cover down the Golden State Warriors are considering going back to the drawing board. The roof of the area would resemble the lid of a seat and the shape of the arena looked like a toilet.

Where the bracket of the toilet seat goes that would be where the Warriors would build a Bay Front Terrace that would be 135 feet high level to the rest of the seat or arena span at the same height at 135 feet high. There would be two office labs for UCSF those buildings would be taller than the arena at 160 feet each.

Warrior spokesman PJ Johnston said that the renderings were not the final design and that the Warriors were considering a “different look” after the out pouring of commentary of it’s porcelain like looks.

The drawing was meant to give an idea what the configurations would look like to simulate traffic conditions. Sounds like a good excuse to make it all look good but this ones by the sound of it is headed down the drain. Some major sports publications and sports networks namely ESPN and Sports Illustrated had some half jokingly comments about the design and the Warriors knew it was time to look at a new design.

Johnston said that once somthing like this gets on the internet it spread like wildfire, “I guess that’s the perils of the internet” but Johnston said that the design will change in the coming months. Traffic has been the main concern for the Warriors and the Mission Bay neighborhood. So the Warriors wanted some design to go with the streets and how it would work for traffic.

As far as transportation and traffic is concern there has been a question as to the Warriors new arena being a quagmire for traffic much like Levis Stadium in Santa Clara has been. The plan is to run light rail from Caltrain at Fourth and Townsend towards Mission Bay. The T line currently runs only one train to Mission Bay from downtown and only uses one car.

That will change once the arena is up and running and the City plans to run double T line cars out to the arena, under the current schedule the trains run anywhere from 15-30 minutes apart. This will have to change even on non game nights because the demand for transportation will be increased due to more medical professionals and students moving into the UCSF Mission Bay neighborhood and that’s nothing to flush at.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developments for the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Kings downtown arena: Opposition hanging onto portions of anti arena arguments in appeals case

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by Jerry Feitelberg

SACRAMENTO–The scrum continues between three Sacramentans and the City of Sacramento as opponents who recently filed an appeals case in front of the same judge who threw out that last set of appeals from the last case argued that subsidies that finance the new Kings arena at Downtown Plaza were done with the public funds that were illegal subsidies. Three Sacramentans filed arguements in Sacramento Superior Court saying that the funding of the arena is illegal and wasteful. The opponents in the appeals case also restated that funding from taxes from Sacramento owned garages should not be used to pay for the new arena.

Sacramento Kevin Johnson said after the opponents last appeal was thrown out by Superior Court Judge Timothy Frawley that this was the last hurdle of any road block to stop the new arena from coming through. Then came last week and the opponents argued again about subsidies and the waste part of the lawsuit was the funding coming from the garages. The city argues that the garages are worthless and shouldn’t be counted as part of the subsidy arguement and they can be fixed up to be useful.

Frawley who threw out two previous arguments has allowed the arguements of “illegal and wasteful” and “abuse of discretion” the latter blamed on the Sacramento City Council, to stay as part of the opponents aguments. The Downtown Plaza has already broke ground as of the middle of August and a great majority of the retail outlets at the Plaza have already moved out prior to the ground break. The opponents before and during construction have fought as far back into last year to stop construction of the Kings arena.

They’ve primarly argued on environmental issues such as post game traffic, noise and pollution of exhaust and for displacing neighbors that have paid for affordable housing for decades in neighboring hotels by forced moves to convert the area and hotels into condos or luxury hotels. Frawley in the previous appeals case ruled that the subsidy sheets were not binding and that the opponents arguments were not going to stop the new arena because the opponents were not able to demonstrate that the subsidies were illegal or wasteful.

The opponents this time around are arguing that they can demonstrate that the financial terms of any balance sheet entered by the city does not legitimately allow the city to use such funding as the garages to pay for the new arena and that monies also used from the city general fund was not suppose to be used for paying for the construction of the Kings new arena. The city’s share of the cost of the new Kings arena is $255 million and the Kings will put in $222 million.

Opponents are arguing also about the large portion of the bonds that will pay for the arena from the city’s coffers and want a list of why the city should use public funds to pay for the arena and where and how it’s going to be paid. The Mayor’s office has said that the opposition has been down this road before and have been overruled twice by the same judge (Frawley) but understand that the opponents are entitled to due process under the law to appeal once again the arguement of the public subsidies.

Frawley will continue to hear further arguemnents of this case by opponents on December 12th regarding the merits of the case. With this being the opponents third appeal the plan to make the challenges of the subsidy funding the core of their case like “illegal and wasteful” and “abuse and discretion” the opponents intend to turn the tide on stopping the new arena that already is underway for construction. The NBA has said that the arena must be ready to go by fall of 2017 or the Kings will have to move to another city.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developments for the Sacramento Kings and the Golden State Warriors for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Kings arena downtown: Kings have the jack hammers going as Downtown Plaza block is shutdown for construction

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by Jerry Feitelberg

SACRAMENTO–Downtown plaza the future home of the Sacramento Kings new arena has the L Street mall shutdown for construction. Most of the plaza stores in the mid part of the mall are shut down. Plans for L Street include buildings that will be office occupied and retail that will serve the nearby arena. One buyer in the neighborhood Trinity Pacific Partners bought 555 Capital Mall an entire city block a 380,000 foot space that has two connected offices that is 14 stories that already has retail and stores on the street level.

The block also has parking that is right across the street that features 791 spaces for parking. The ideal situation when the Kings start play at the arena for the fall of 2016. Currently the building has a 60 percent occupation rate that contains law and accounting firms. Trinity is invloved with business partners Buzz Oates LLC, AM Investors and Rubicon Partners as a group they remodled the Forum building at Ninth and K Streets and the Citizen Hotel at 10th and J Streets.

Purchase price was not available through public records, Trinity has plans for the towers to fill the empty office space and they most likely will succeed when the new arena is up and running and downtown office space will be at a premium with many companies ready to rent the space that would attract businesses who will come down to see the newly refurbished neighborhood.

With Downtown Plaza demoed there are already takers waiting to move into the new buildings in anticipation of the Kings new arena, Kipp Blewett from the firm Ribicon Partners plan to operate and lease the building and there are big plans with retail and businesses already lining up to move in.

The mere excitment of the Kings moving downtown has the locals excited to get business going and there will be a lot of improvements and new looks to downtown the these buildings being remodeled will according to Blewett have more boutique firms. Michael Ault of the Downtown Sacramento Partnership said the new arena will bring economic benefits “everything that we had talked about in the way of momentum from the arena project is starting to come together.”

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developments for the Sacramento Kings and the Golden State Warriors for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Warriors arena at Mission Bay: While Piers 30-32 is falling into the Bay Warriors get set up at Mission Bay site

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by Jerry Feitelberg

SAN FRANCISCO–Guess what Piers 30-32 the former planned arena location for the Golden State Warriors is all about? It’s about to fall into San Francisco Bay unless someone comes forward with $87 million to prevent the foundation of the pier from an eventual collapse and do a nice fixer upper for the project. Proposition B which passed this past June eliminated any hope for the Warriors to build a new state of the art arena at the piers.

The measure makes it clear that any new buildings built along the waterfront must be done with San Francisco voters approval. The measure restricts height limits and that pretty much forced the Warriors at the time to find other digs which will be at Mission Bay a good mile from where they wanted to play hoops. The Warriors who met with Mission Bay residents last Thursday unveiled a illustrated look of the arena.

Getting to the new arena will take a little longer at the current stage unless as San Francisco Muni plans to get light rail from the Warriors arena connected on the same line with the Powell Street Metro station.Public transit plays a big role in the Warriors new arena thinking. The City has taken on a lot of sports failures losing the Warriors at Piers 30-32 and losing the San Francisco 49ers to Santa Clara and losing out on Pier 30-32 has not resonated well with San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee’s office.

Lee’s office while all behind Prop B and matter of fact ready to take on the the California State Commission who plans to take the measure to court arguing that the city doesn’t have jurisdiction over the waterfront port not to mention the commission has former San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom now California Lt.Governor planning to fight the city.

Lee initially said that if the Warriors build at Piers 30-32 it would be his legacy but the legs of that thought was quickly squashed when Lee saw the number of ballots going to the voters registar’s office to get proposition B on the ballot.

After realizing that Piers 30-32 wasn’t going to work Lee was relieved that the Warriors planned to purchase land and move to Mission Bay. The disscussion is still about Prop B even though the Warriors arena location issue has been resolved. Oracle’s CEO Larry Ellison wants to build at the waterfront and at Piers 30-32 hotels and condominums. The Warriors wanted to do that too with the new arena at that location. Lee and City Attorney Dennis Herrera are prepared to fight Newsom and the State Commission on jurisdiction over the port and Herrera has said the city voters have a say about height limits at the Embarcadero.

As Ellison and company knows that won’t happen without voter approval and that’s very unlikely given the waterfront neighborhood already had rejected the arena idea there. The Warriors wanted to build a hotel and condo across the street from the arena. While Piers 30-32 are an ideal location in conjunction with the Embarcadero and nearby Market Street transit. Mission Bay will prove ideal once the light rail hook up is good to go in 2019 the Warriors plan to open their new digs in the 2018 season.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developments for the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings for http://www.sportsradioservice.com

Warriors Unveil Preliminary Plans for New Arena

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by Jerry Feitelberg

The Golden State Warriors met with the Mission Bay Citizens Advisory Committee Thursday evening August 14th to discuss the preliminary site design concept for their new arena. The meeting lasted ninety minutes and over one hundred people jammed the meeting room to find out about the plans for the arena and to ask questions about the project.

The Warriors bought parcels 29,30,31 and 32 in Mission Bay. The parcels are bounded on the North by South St(no pun intended), Terry Francois Boulevard on the east, Third St on the west and 16th st on the south. The plan is to build an 18,000 seat arena slightly off-center with a height of 135 feet. 500,000 square feet of office space will also be built along with 55,000 to 90,000 square feet available for retail. The Warriors are setting aside a 3.2 acres plaza as public space. In addition, an underground garage will be built for 700 spaces. Truck deliveries will be made via entry into the underground parking facility.

The Arena is being funded entirely by the Warriors and no public funds will be used to build the arena, The W’s, in order to finance the project, are making the arena available about 55 family shows a year as well as 41 Warrior games, 31 other rentals, concerts, other sporting events and pre-season Warrior games.

The plan is hoping to energize and activate Bayfront Park. The Warriors claim that there are plentiful transit options within a short walking distance. For example, the Caltrain station is just a short 10 to 15 minute walk from 4th and King. There is also excellent pedestrian and bike access. People can take Muni and the Warriors announced that the Central Subway project should begin operating in 2019 and that should help with some of the transit issues. The Warriors expect to start play at the start of the 2018-2019 season.

After the presentation, questions were fielded by the staff to answer the concerns of the neighborhood. Many of the people that live in the neighborhood told horror stories of traffic congestion and trash in the neighborhood following a Giants ‘game. It seemed to be worse especially after a day game as people who work in the area could not leave to go home or had to let their employees leave 2 to 3 hours early.

The Warriors staff reminded the people that the Warrior games start at 7:30 and an end time of the game is much more predicable than a baseball game. They also said that the crowd was just about 40% of what the Giant crowd is and that they have made plans for traffic control in the area so that people will not, hopefully, have too many problems leaving the arena.

There was concern that the 700 parking spaces under the arena was not sufficient to handle the demand . In addition, there is concern that there will be more development in the area and that parking will be at a premium. The Warriors could not answer all the questions but are optimistic that the plan will be a success. The Warriors will present a transportation management plan and pre and post event management strategies at the meetings in October.



Warriors Mission Bay Arena: Warriors slated to meet with Mission Bay residents on Thursday

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by Jerry Feitelberg

SAN FRANCISCO–The Golden State Warriors are out of the waterfront restricted zone redlined by proposition B limits to height limitations as they will be housed on Third, South and 16th Streets, and Terry Francois Boulevard. The Warriors who purchased Mission Bay property from salesforce.com will discuss their ideas for the new arena with local Mission Bay residents. The Warriors who had planned since 2012 to move from Oakland to San Francisco’s Piers 30-32 was not able to move to the Embarcadero because of Prop B which was designed to restrict height limits.

The Warriors want to make nice with their neighbors and not try and bogart their way into the nieghborhood and want to see what the local residents concerns are. Traffic conditions and access in and out of residents homes is one of the concerns. Unlike Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara where some residents are almost a prisioner to their own home during this month’s Earthquakes game they couldn’t leave or come home because of the traffic tie ups near the new stadium.

This is something that the Warriors want to address and qualify with residents and assure them that they would have access in and out of their resdience before,during and after basketball contests. The residents are going to ask about access streets and where they stand versus where game night traffic would be like. Public transit is another concern that coincides with traffic conditions and San Francisco Muni plans to run light rail from Mission Bay to Powell Street station that should lighten the load for traffic.

The Port of San Francisco wanted to see development for the waterfront but with proposition B giving teeth to development any design that seeks anything over the height limit will have to be put in front of the voters for approval. One example is that Forest City developers want to start a project at Pier 70 that is 28 acres and that would ask San Francisco voters for a 40-90 foot raise for their retail and condo project in the City’s Dogpatch District that currently has old wherehouses that were built in the early 20th Century sitting on it’s foundation.

While the Warriors won’t have to deal with the height limits they still have to glad hand their neighbors as they don’t want to run into any turmoil such as they had with the waterfront residents when they planned to move to Piers 30-32. The Warriors intention of the Thursday meeting is to see what the neighborhood concerns are. There are no blueprints or designs of the new arena to present to the residents on Thursday but the Warriors plan to devulge more detail of their arena project they have a design of the look of the arena but blueprints and street access is expected to follow.

Jerry Feitelberg is covering the new arena developments for the Golden State Warriors and Sacramento Kings for http://www.sportsradioservice.com