When Andre Iguodala signed with the Golden Warriors in 2013, there was no guarantee that he’d be part of a dynasty. Stephen Curry was not yet an All-Star, and Klay Thompson and Draymond Green were just starting their careers.
As it turned out, Iguodala’s sacrifices and foresight contributed to four championships, highlighted by an NBA Finals MVP win in 2015, when he led the Warriors to their first title in four decades.
On Sunday, they honored Iguodala by retiring his No. 9 and raising his jersey to the rafters at Chase Center.
“It’s been a wild journey, but it’s been a beautiful blessing,” Iguodala said in his speech.
Iguodala became the seventh player to have his number retired by the franchise. He joined Rick Barry (24), Wilt Chamberlain (13), Nate Thurmond (42), Al Attles (16), Chris Mullin (17) and Tom Meschery (14)
Iguodala already had an accomplished career before joining the Warriors. He had established himself as a defensive stalwart and everyday starter over nine seasons. In Golden State, he assumed the role of providing veteran leadership, recognizing the talent he had around him.
“You sacrificed ego for excellence,” Curry said during Sunday’s ceremony.
Curry said Iguodala unlocked confidence, intelligence and maturity for an up-and-coming team, adding that he went from being the face of the franchise with the Philadelphia 76ers to the “glue” with the Warriors that “made it all work.”
“He wanted to join what was happening, because he saw how special it was,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said before Sunday’s 126-102 win over the Dallas Mavericks. “That was a coup. I mean, the Warriors weren’t exactly getting a lot of free agents. So to sign Andre was obviously one of the key moves to this whole thing.”
Iguodala was 30 in his first season with the Warriors and had never come off the bench in 10 seasons. When Kerr took over the team the following year, Iguodala agreed to take a bench role. He called it a “great, unique situation” and said that Curry, Thompson and Green made it easy on him
“It’s rare in professional sports to see a guy that’s kind of still in his prime kind of take a back seat, or actually willingly move out the way for the up-and-coming guys,” The 41-year-old Iguodala said before the game.
That resulted in a championship run in 2015, with Iguodala becoming the first player to win NBA Finals MVP after not starting every game in the series. It was Kerr who trusted Iguodala to perform on the big stage and moved him into the starting lineup trailing 2-1 to the Cavaliers in the 2015 Finals and gave him the assignment of guarding then-Cleveland star LeBron James.
He averaged 16.3 points, 4.0 assists and 5.8 rebounds as the Warriors beat the Cavaliers in six games.
“That was the ultimate validation of everything I’ve always believed in the game, and I do think other people recognize that,” Kerr said. “It wasn’t lost on anyone, the sacrifice and the success and everything that kind of happened together.”
Iguodala was the No. 9 pick in the 2004 NBA Draft out of Arizona and played in 1,231 career games. He spent eight seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers, one in Denver, six with the Warriors, two in Miami and returned to Golden State for his last two seasons. He was part of NBA championships in 2015, ’17, ’18 and 2022.
Iguodala said the Warriors’ core had a drive to keep going, especially after winning the first championship.
“When we won the first one, it was almost like we had to do it again to prove that it wasn’t a fluke,” Iguodala said. “And then, once you win the second one, you’re like, ’Alright, we’ve got to do it again because nobody can touch us. And we’ve got to do it again because we’re supposed to do it again.’”
He added: “That’s just the unique characteristics of great athletes, the ones who are never satisfied. That was in the DNA of every individual, and it just bred into the fabric of the organization.” NBA