
Editor's Note: The above video is from the "Warriors Tio-Off Luncheon" at the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2015.
OAKLAND – The Warriors on Wednesday morning got a taste of the Fleet Week Fever sweeping the Bay Area when 15 members of the famed Blue Angels met with the team during its practice at the team facility.
“What they talked about was the teamwork and trust and selflessness it takes for them to succeed up there,” interim coach Luke Walton said of the elite military flying squad. “You have to have the ultimate trust. There’s sacrifice and there’s no egos. That was kind of their message to our guys.”
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The session, which included a video viewing of the pilots in action, seemed to resonate with the defending champions.
“A lot of similarities between what we do and what they do,” Steph Curry said. “Trust in one another . . . knowing where each other is in the field of play. Communication, that brotherhood and teamwork it takes for both of us to be successful. We see how unified they are in everything they do, and we try to do the same.”
Forward Draymond Green, who after practice spent about 10 minutes chatting with the squad, seemed particularly moved.
“The show they put on is cool and all, but what they had to get through to get there wasn’t easy,” Green said. “It wasn’t just learning how to fly a jet and joining the Blue Angels and putting on shows for people. Some of those guys, probably all of them, have been in combat. They’ve been in Iraq and Afghanistan defending our country. For us to show our thanks to them is important.
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The Warriors felt the visit was important enough to postpone some of their video study, which they’ll review Wednesday night after arriving Portland. Walton was willing to step aside for a few minutes for men who risk their lives for the country.
Green said he appreciated the mutual respect shown, but realizes that basketball players military pilots may share similar principles but have totally different perspectives.
“I was just talking to one of them,” Green sayd, “and he was saying, ‘What we both do is very similar.’ And I’m like, ‘Stop saying that.’ Yeah, we come out and play a game and we do put our all into it. But at the end of the day, if you lose the game you go home and you go to sleep. Some guys can wake up the next day still pissed, some guys wake up and they’re not.
“But one mistake for them, and it can be all over.”