Juan Toscano-Anderson and Baron Davis, induction ceremony as Honorary Warriors For Life
Dub Nation has spoken
The master list of Honorary Warriors For Life lists everyone already polled.
Juan Toscano-Anderson
The final votes are in for Juan Toscano-Anderson as Honorary Warriors For Life, and the results are:
Twitter: 78% yes
DNHQ poll: 91% yes
Comment votes (each counts as 10 votes): 86% yes
The weighted vote comes in as 85.7% Yes / 12.8% No / 0.4% Don’t Know, which is easily above my arbitrary threshold of 75% for Honorary Warrior For Life status.
Congratulations, Our Guy Juanito! His nomination packet along with lots of nice testimonials and back and forth on his value can be found in the original thread.
Dub Nation Speaks
Trogdor (16 ♡):
Yes, but not for his play on the court. I argued no for Damion Lee because I think if you're an end of bench guy who's only with the team a relatively short time period there needs to be something more. With JTA, there is.
First, he provided some fun, memorable moments. His high energy play and his "rags to riches" story helped to make the "lost" 20-21 season. Fans were captivated by his backstory of his difficult childhood in Oakland, and being a lifelong Warriors fan. When he cheered, it wasn't just cheering for his current team, it was cheering for the team he had cheered for his entire life. In so many ways he fulfilled the childhood dream that so many of us share: growing up and not only playing for, but winning a championship with the team you rooted for! JTA was perhaps the best thing that could happen to the Warriors as they moved from Oakland to SF because even as the team played in Chase Center, it was if he represented its past in Oracle by his very presence. He gave his whole heart, mind, and soul every single game, whether he was starting, playing garbage minutes, or cheering from the bench.
Additionally, his breakthroughs as a player of Mexican decent should be recognized. He's the first player that I know of to come to the NBA by way of Mexican professional teams, the first player of Mexican decent to participate in the Slam Dunk Contest (although we don't need to talk about the contest itself), and only the second player of Mexican decent (and first since the 80s) to win an NBA championship. He was able to inspire and connect with a portion of the NBA's fan base that has not had much representation to date. Much as Yao Ming was voted into the HOF for more than just his on court play, JTA should be voted a HWFL in large part for his cultural contributions and influence.
Best of luck to JTA in his NBA career moving forward. I hope he has amazing stats on a losing Lakers' team. For all of the above reasons he gets my YES vote.
invo.k.shen (15 ♡):
Yes.
I disagree with those who think of HWFL as primarily about basketball play.
For me a big part is about the spirit, and are you family? And JTA was something of a folk hero last season, was our energy and life off the bench, reps Oakland hard, breathes “strength in numbers”. For this reason, I give him a resounding yes.
Yes it’s totally subjective and fuzzy. But it’s all about the warm fuzzies.
Marina (13 ♡):
I always thought he won the HWfL title when he fell over the scorer’s table. That was a statement of a true Warrior.
Also, it’s a moral obligation for me to support Latinx representation. ;)
xyz (12 ♡):
So his minutes dried up and he was never a big star, by conventional NBA standards. So what. Has there ever been a more Warriors-like Warrior than JTA? Don Nelson would have given a kidney to coach this guy. You can imagine him on any Dubs team from the past 35 years. Even his exit was lunchpail. He probably didn't want to put on the clown nose and sign with that sideshow down the coast, but everybody's got to eat. Hard yes Warrior for Life.
Dawn (8 ♡):
Short Version: 95, Warrior For Life!
Long Version: Everything about his tenure resonates Warriors. His Bay Area roots, the determination to play that led him to Mexico, then back to join the SC Warriors, and eventually, the NBA. JTA is proud of his heritage, so consistent with Warriors values, he found ways to support the community while playing in the G league and the NBA: working with kids, organizing a peaceful demonstration after the death of George Floyd, and more.
JTA puts everything into the game, even when he is not playing. Seeing JTA and his "evil twin" Damion Lee challenging, encouraging, and celebrating was the most entertaining part of some games. As of 2021-22, JTA is an NBA World Champion - ring and everything. After celebrating with Dub nation, he traveled to Mexico to share the Larry O'Brien trophy with his first fans. Yep, Warrior for life!
inkatouring (3 ♡):
JTA is a nice player but not much more. He was important when the Dubs were at their Dynasty lowest but not even really much of role player once they bounced back. Not to harsh on the man--he deserves an NBA pension--but if he didn't have the heart-warming local-guy story he'd be nothing more than Damien Lee (if DLee wasn't married to a Curry--but that's another Oprah show).
It turns out I have quite a backlog of Honorary Warriors For Life winners to induct. I last ran this series late September 2021, and I can’t remember why I stopped. I think it’s because life got busy and on the Warriors front, training camp was wild, with the Langston Galloway / Avery Bradley / Gary Payton II competition and all that.
Baron Davis
New Warriors fans might scoff at any year that doesn’t end in a championship and claim Bob Myers should be fired (or even fired upon) as a traitor to the state, but not long ago, even making the playoffs was a crazy dream.
From 1995 through 2012, the Warriors made the playoffs exactly one time. That is an 18 year stretch, my friends. Not only did they miss the playoffs, but they fought internally, played terribly, and drafted even worse.
But oh what a playoffs it was. In this context, winning a first round series made the whole lineup local heroes.
Baron Davis was the leader of the We Believe Warriors, the point guard, and in the playoffs, he was the leading scorer at 25.3 PPG, leading assist man at 6.5 APG…
…and threw down possibly still the most iconic dunk in franchise history.
Things ended bitterly, as they always did before 2013. We Believe was immediately maimed by trading Jason Richardson, then managed to win 48 games and set a record for most wins without making the playoffs, then GSW cheaped out on their contract offer to Baron Davis, so he left as a free agent to LAC, and that was that.
In his HWFL poll, Baron Davis racked up a 88% vote. He made the 75% threshold easily, so congratulations to Mr. Davis who pulled in a huge supporting vote from a rather picky fan base.
Looking at that list of top HWFL does highlight how subjective the criteria are and how much times change. I think if we voted on all of those guys at once, the results would be very different.
One visit to the playoffs in 18 years. Ouuuccchhhh.