Nick played collegiate basketball at the University of San Diego and U.C. Berkeley. His first NBA gig came with the San Antonio Spurs when he worked in the video room back in the 2017-18 season. Over the following three seasons, he worked with his dad in the Bay doing the same thing before taking on the assistant coaching role down in Santa Cruz.
He will replace Seth Cooper, who is leaving the role after two seasons as head coach to move on to Golden State’s player development program.
Nick’s dad Steve has been a part of the organization since the 2014-15 season, helping lead the Warriors to four championships, and is regarded as one of the greatest coaches in all of basketball.
“Forty years, you can feel it from the Bay,” Thompson recalled. “I talked to people who grew up in Oakland and surrounding cities, ‘We could have never envisioned a Warriors championship, are you kidding me?’ They were just in awe and to see Oakland packed that day around Lake Merritt and just how happy people were, I’ll never forget those memories. So Game 6 2015 the feelings you get, it was so unexpected, so much greatness that year.”
You just named a list of players that have excelled in college, the NBA or the WNBA. Was there anybody in particular on the boys or girls side that you knew after the camp had a chance to really be special?
Anthony Edwards for sure. He just had a different demeanor and different competitive presence out there on the court during our camp sessions and even in the showcase game that we had. There were just plays that he made that nobody else really could. So I think that most people who watched that year would have had a lot of confidence in the fact that he’d be who he wanted to be.
NBA executive vice president Joe Dumars said in a news release that Edwards was fined for “recklessly swinging a chair in frustration that struck two bystanders.”
Edwards missed a game-tying 3-pointer at the end of Minnesota’s Game 5 loss to Denver and ran off the court as the two teams exchanged handshakes. Cameras caught Edwards swinging the chair before heading to the locker room.
He was, essentially, the prototypical big guard at 6-foot-4, with the ability to score multiple ways, make game-winning shots yet remain unselfish with the ball, blessed with the strength needed to rebound in traffic and the anticipatory skills required for defense. Above all, he brought the fiery competitiveness that separates the greats from all others.
“When I look back on it,” Wade said in 2019, “I’ve done everything I could.”
He did enough in basketball to earn the ultimate honor of being known on a nickname basis to the world: D-Wade. He came to Miami at the right time; the franchise began to regress after enjoying a spirited run — but no title — during the Alonzo Mourning/Tim Hardaway years of the mid-to-late 1990s. Riley stepped away from coaching (temporarily, as it turned out) and moved to the front office. The Heat needed a fresh face for a new era.
In case you missed it at Golden State of Mind:
There’s always the riskier but more exciting option: a player who they think could, by the end of the season, be a solid contributor. Of the reported group, Giles definitely fits the bill the most. He’s still only 25, was a first-round draft pick, and is a fluid 6’11 player with quality passing chops and instincts.
He’s also been plagued by injuries in his career and has never actually been good, but…
Toscano-Anderson grew up in East Oakland, which is why he wore the highest number in Warriors history – No. 95 – as a tribute to his grandfather’s home, at 95th Avenue and A Street. That’s only two miles from the Oakland Coliseum. He still gets his hair cut at Phat Fades and eats at Mariscos La Costa, so he’s very loyal to Oakland.
This season, after the A’s announced their plan to relocate to Vegas, the annual Battle of the Bay became a “Unite The Bay” event. Fans of both teams joined in chants of “Sell The Team” and donned “SELL” shirts, urging Oakland’s owner to sell.