I want you to take us behind the curtain and tell us what's really like to be an N b a locker room, but just not as a player, you know what I mean?

So, like, take us.

Give us that the full game day routine.

There's a is a game at Oracle.

What time you get there, What do you do?

Who do you talk to?

How long do you wait to talk to?

The players give us, like a minute by minute recounting of the experience in an N B A locker room.

But instead of as a player like Jalen as a reporter like you all right, it's like 10 30.

You're going into shoot around at the Warriors practice facility in the morning.

You're talking to Steve Currie.

You're talking to a couple players.

You're getting a read on what they potentially think is gonna happen that night.

Now, in between, when you get out 11 30 12 o'clock, maybe you have to do some radio stuffs and stuff on TV.

Maybe have to write a story or two, but that's your time.

To maybe get a nap in, have some lunch and then you're back at Oracle about 4 30 you're trying to walk around the floor.

You're you're seeing what's happening as guys prepare for the game, and that's when you have your best conversations.

Honestly, when you're off the record, you're just talking the guys casually in.

You're seeing what's on their mind.

But so, officially, about 5 15 or 5 30 Steve Kerr talks.

Then the opposing coach talked about 15 minutes later.

Then you have pregame access.

Which back in the day, Jacoby about 10 years ago.

That was fantastic, because you could just walk around the room and and talk to guys about anything you wanted.

10 years later, nobody's really in there.

It's maybe the younger guys, in my case, that the words it's Clay Thompson literally reading a newspaper at his La Belle click like that is that is genuine.

That is not for show.

He sits at his locker before every game at Oracle, and he reads the newspaper what newspaper?

The East Bay Times.

And he's got a endorsement deal eight times the East Bay Tides.

So Clay is hard core in in whatever he does, and I'd add this quickly.

It always cracked me up because Clay kind of did whatever he wanted and this is way behind the curtain.

But it always drove Kevin nuts because Kevin wouldn't talk to the media sometimes.

And as we saw last season, there were plenty of times where people like Why isn't Durant saying whatever he's going to say?

And Kevin, in my experience, he's the most accessible star I've ever been around.

He loves talking about the game.

He loved just talking about basketball.

He doesn't like all the other stuff sometimes.

But basketball?

The guy knows more numbers than anybody, anybody I've ever seen, but so he would get upset because could be sitting here in his locker reading the news favor.

Or Clay would decide at the end of the game.

You know what?

I didn't play very well.

I don't wanna talk.

I don't want to deal with this.

And you have a Really What would happen if I did that?

What would you all say if I just disappeared?

And I didn't say anything for a while.

But that's Clay having carved out his own image and Kevin having having carved out his overtime.

But so aside from all that, now you're at 66 15.

Get out of the locker room.

Maybe you talk to some of the other writers or the broadcasters have a little dinner, but never eat it.

Oracle.

That food was horrible, though.

That sued at Oracle was the very worst.

Where were you eat then?

Well, I usually go to it it at about 12 30 or one in the morning after the game.

But that was good either.

That's all the nutritionist say that you should probably have fast food after midnight.

It's really the Newt if the new thing that way.

The Atkins diet.

That low carb thing there's like the cayenne pepper lemonade.

Now it's in and out after midnight is the best thing for your body that's already t get you in shape.

Is that that little getting out?

Boost right after and wash it down with the strawberry shake.

You know, you're really, really good.

Yeah, that's really good.

That's the good.

But now we're into the game, and it's like 99 30 it ends, you go in and the Warriors for for the flaws that they had publicly, sometimes with Kevin or what happened during the year.

They are the best run PR organization that I have ever dealt with in any sport.

And I say that because it is like a machine.

Most now you say that because you have to work with them next year.

That's why you say that.

But I'm just telling you, Even before I got there, I always felt like the Warriors did it the best in its back.

I have heard this for this from other sources under actually up.

It's backed up by the fact that the Pro Basketball Writers Association they vote on this stuff every year, and the Waters have won this award like four of the last five years.

And they win it because in an era where every team is trying to limit access, the Warriors go out of their way to make guys more available and in the flow of a postgame conversation, it's like a machine.

Steve Kerr comes into this press conference room and he does his 10 minutes with the media.

And then here comes Kevin Durant and then right after Kevin Durant.

Here comes Clay when he wants to talk, when, when he's not walking away to go hang out with his dog and go home.

But there's the markets.

Cousins.

There's Draymond, who is one of the best quotes that there isn't pro sports.

And then usually Steph is much later, and he takes his time.

But he does always show up, and he always talked.

So now you're into 10 15 or 10 30 you've spoken to all the the players and the coaches and you start writing your stories or, in my case, you're writing a story or you've got to go do, ah, segment on TV or do a segment on the radio, but from about 10 in the morning until 12 or 12 30 when you're hidden in and out.

That is your day.

And I don't think most fans understand.

It's not just going to the game and having a very and open up a pizza box.

I mean it is it is an all day affair, and that's 82 times a year.

So where when does this scrum around the lockers happen?

Because when you say these.

They're coming to the press room, wins the locker, screw.

Well, see.

And that's the difference with Warriors and everybody else.

The Warriors home games have a press conference room that I'd say almost every other team doesn't have to deal with because there's not as much attention on them on a regular basis.

Most teams the game ends.

The coach comes and talks, either in a press conference room or right outside the locker room.

And then you've got players that are just sitting at their lockers after they've gotten out of the shower in and they do their five or 10 minutes of access now, depending on who the player is and what kind of mood they're in that day, you're supposed to only via little wait for, you know, 10 15 minutes in the locker room.

But some of these guys just love hanging out and making everybody wait.

Shout out to my old friend Jimmy Butler.

It's one of the culprits of that, always, but if you if you get a guy in a good mood, you should only be in that locker room for for 20 or 25 minutes after the game.

If you guys want to mess around a little bit and the amount of hours that I have spent in various locker rooms listening to guys be sa in and make fun of the media and everyone else that is, that's a lot of time.

Do you think there's a palpable tension between players and the media?

Yes, absolutely.

How does it manifest itself that players do not want to go out of their way to say anything anymore?

And even when they do talk, they don't want to say anything that's going to rock the boat or make any news because they feel like in so many cases it's being taken out of context.

And that's what's happened with the proliferation of of, of websites and people with Twitter and journalists that are looking for that.

That headline, I mean, there are a lot of reasons why, but the answer to your question is 100% in the time when I started covering the league, and I've been around other pro sports, too.

Now, most athletes just don't want to deal with the media because they don't want to deal with the potential backlash of whatever their words, Maybe thanks so much for watching ESPN on YouTube firm or sports analysis and highlights.

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