Warriors “Dubble” Day One of Mini-Camp: Live Thread

Sep 23, 2020

Today officially marks the first day of Warriors group practice or workouts in the “Dubble”, after going through 48-hour quarantine protocol, as mandated by an agreement between the NBA and NBPA. Also so far, it appears this revolution will not be televised, but it’s early and we shall see.

Every day through next Friday, the Warriors will have some sort of practice and/or scrimmage. During non-pandemic times, the team would usually have formal practice at around 11:00AM (Pacific time, of course), then we credentialed media would be allowed into Biofreeze Performance Center and I would film some players shooting around on the four courts, sometimes six baskets, followed by the interview scrums.

Warriors PR would usually have head coach Steve Kerr sit in the interviewee’s chair and we would gather around and have a Q&A with him. However in the COVID-19 era, this obviously will not be happening, so we will get Kerr by Ring Central live Internet conferencing. Ring Central is a sponsor of the Warriors and happens to be powered by Zoom, which we are all familiar with. I’ll probably just say, “Zoom,” from now on, out of simplicity.

After Kerr and in pre-pandemic times, we usually got one or two players and it all just depended on the unpredictable daily dynamics of prior engagements, which player had already done an interview recently, how many reporters had asked for a particular player, a player’s mood or interest in doing the Q&A, or whatever.

Reporters could ask for certain guys one-on-one, and if there were no COVID-19, Shaun Livingston and Leandro Barbosa would certainly be of great interest today, slough they both have already done some radio/podcasts (we’ll be posting those soon). Those potential one-on-ones are a part of the pandemic that mainstream media will probably be missing the most, although for @LetsGoWarriors in particular, we’ll be missing the views of players honing their craft after practice and all the surrounding background activity — the “experience”!

Today, I’m sure Kerr will be asked on Zoom how formal or informal of a practice they had, considering he’s on record as saying the top priority of this training camp is for the guys to be together. If you’d like, you can submit a question below, but generally speaking, the beatwriters tend to ask the obvious questions already (such as the one I’ve offered in this paragraph) as they need quotes in their daily articles. If I am afforded the opportunity to ask a question to Kerr, I would prefer asking the most informative question that benefits fans on the whole, all in the one shot that I get.

That is to say, submit questions below, but know that there’s a good chance I’ll not be using your question. It really has to stand out for me to use it. If I don’t use your question, feel free to ask anything below anyways, and I’ll try to answer it myself based on the information that I have, whether that’s before or after the actual interview.

This is also important for you: post your question below in the easiest way for me to see it. That is to say, don’t bury your question as a reply in someone else’s thread, unless there’s a need to do so. If I can’t see your question easily, then I’ll probably miss it.

I’m dealing with new technology here with the Ring Central software and other things as explained below, but I’ll try to do a Live Thread in the comments as the Q&A is happening. Perhaps more importantly, I’ll try to record and upload the interview(s) as best as I can for mass consumption, as soon as possible after the event has concluded. As such, please know that I’ve got a lot on my plate. I’m sure something will go wrong.

In the past, I would’ve “livetweeted” these so-called media availabilities as I did during non-pandemic times, but I’ve been dismayed by the negativity on Twitter and I literally feel we’ve digressed to a point where audiences there do not even deserve the uniqueness of livetweeting. I’m glad we have another safer platform to do this.

On that note, speaking of platforms, I’d like to also formally announce that we have a new Discord server that is currently by invite only. Again, it was setup to be the Twitter up until 2015-16, when that was a positive place for Warriors fans.l to consume content. Now, the content consists of memes that make fun of other people or are overly arrogant about whatever Warriors players, or devolve info he-said-she-said about X player in comparison to Steph, blah blah blah.

There are a lot of angry people out there who happen to be Warriors fans and project whatever it is in their lives that’s bothering them, onto social media. It’s even happened in the comments here. But anyone who is a subscriber here automatically gets an invite to our Discord. Just mention in the comments below that you’re a subscriber and be ready to show proof, like a screenshot of your subscriber account, via some other method such as DMs on Twitter or IG, because unfortunately you can’t post anything but text in our commenting system.

As you probably know, anyone can comment on this website when we post an article like this which is open to the public. Again, only paid subscribers here will get an invite to our Discord. We will grow our Discord gradually and when we hit critical mass and things become really fun on there, such as if and when I’m back at Chase Center somehow safely reporting on the time in person, I may offer the Discord to a greater number of people via its own subscription, should they elect not to subscribe to this site.

And Discord will be the first place I submit any live observations today, such as quotes from Kerr and any Warriors players on the call, as it’s as easy as tweeting, whereas these comments are still on a website instead of an app. But this here Live Thread will be a close second area of priority. Again, I will not do this on Twitter, as I mentioned, and I will probably go on Instagram Live only for the first 60 seconds of each Q&A — although that might be awkward considering it will be a livestream of my computer screen, i.e., a livestream of a livestream. And yet, where else are you going to see the Warriors live, right?

With that, I’d like to announce that the first Warriors player to take the mic since February will be Jordan Poole. He will be on the post-practice Q&A. Usually, the coach goes first, then any players.

So submit your questions below ahead of time, and we’ll see how it goes. I’ll even post a few that were asked on Discord already. I’ll try to answer the ones that don’t make the cut, or maybe they’ll get answered during the Q&A anyways.

The Zoom is supposed to start at 1:30PM today, which means the team probably had a two-hour practice today, going off of what I know of normal practices, but we’ll get more information as that comes in.

See you then, below and on Discord (for the subscribers)! 👇

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