Warriors-Sixers pregame: Kerr’s passionate plea on gun violence & background checks, Curry to miss 3 more games, Wiseman starts

Steph to be re-evaluated in a week, Poole dominated practice

Here are notes & quotes from pregame Warriors-Sixers with Steve Kerr, which started late and went long, so we were not able to attend the pregame with Doc Rivers.

Please check our YouTube channel for more uploads, but the thumbnail at the top of this article is clickable and goes to the first pregame video on Stephen Curry being re-evaluated in a week (he’ll miss three more games), James Wiseman starting for the foreseeable future, and Jordan Poole dominating the scrimmage yesterday at practice.

KERR:

Kerr starts with the names behind him, victims in both Atlanta and Boulder: “important to reference their names, these are human beings…just devastating particularly in the wake of just a common occurrence in our country and an inability of our representatives in doing anything about it…Mike Thompson (Napa) was behind HR-8 (background checks)…85-90% support…the gun in Atlanta was bought that day without a background check, 8 people died as a result…it hasn’t even been presented to the Senate…at a loss for words at this point, we can’t sit here and accept that we’ll allow our fellow citizens to mow each other down with automatic weapons…disgusting, devastating…our Senate has to do something about it…acknowledge the people who are suffering today.”

- SF orange tier, fans: “I’m the wrong person to ask in terms of expertise…really really hoping for that to happen…our fingers are crossed.”

- Warriors displaying names: “the reason to do it is to remind people these are human beings, it’s important to humanize them…you read there were 8 victims…when you see faces, when you see names, it personalizes it…how many dreams were shattered…continues to be a statistic…easy for the idiots out there to say this is the price of freedom…that’s why we’re Americans? What are we even talking about?…Ted Cruz, this could be your family…would you not want something in place where there’s a background check?…continue to cater to a very small minority…we go through driving school…nothing like that with a gun, we can just show up to Walmart?…a lot of us are just angry…couple years ago we had moments of silence for months…we have to address it, we can’t just turn it into a political issue…did guns exist when God created the Earth, I wasn’t aware of that…sick of the rhetoric, particularly of the Republican Senators, we are not being represented.”

- your anguish? “Of course…my family had to deal with the loss of my dad…we don’t want other people to have to deal with what we dealt with…100/day die from a gun…everybody is just so fed up…we had pretty good momentum…March for Our Lives…younger generation…we have to address it. There’s an Onion headline that they tweet (after every shooting)…we’re living in this bizarre denial…stuck in this political battle that 90% of our country doesn’t even believe in.”

- locker room: “depends…we occasionally have discussions.”

- resilience: “we have so much to play for, we’re right in the thick of the playoff race…they love the game…advance their careers, take care of their families…focus is to get better every day…this is our refuge, to come to the gym…and play basketball.”

- Steph: “re-evaluate in a week, so he got an MRI this morning and it showed inflammation in that tailbone…had made some progress…(but) still pretty sore…this is gonna be a little bit longer than we thought…he’s gonna miss the next three games…re-evaluate before the fourth game.”

- Wiseman/Paschall: “ready to go, James is gonna start tonight…Poole for Steph”

- vaccinations: “any of those conversations will be handled by our doctors.”

- Wiseman starting: “I anticipate James is gonna start the rest of the season…there’s 29 games left, it feels like the time to get him into the lineup…after 40+ games, James has come along really well, he’s picked up a lot of the concepts…he needs to be out there…when I made the switch to Loon I felt it was the right thing to do competitively, rotationally…but this feels right, now.”

- Poole improvement: “confidence and his decision-making has been so on point, he has two turnovers over that whole stretch…making decisions so much quicker…he was dominant in practice yesterday in our practice…brimming with confidence.”

/end