Kurtenbach: Kevon Looney — the Warriors’ irreplaceable colossus — keeps
proving he’s a Golden State legend
Golden State Warriors: With Draymond Green suspended, Kevon Looney
pulled down 20 rebounds, dished out nine assists, and saved the
Warriors' season.
>Golden State Warriors’ Kevon Looney #5 pulls down a rebound past
Sacramento Kings’ Domantas Sabonis #10 in the second quarter of Game 3
of the NBA Western Conference first-round playoffs at the Chase Center
in San Francisco, Calif., on Thursday, April 20, 2023. (Jane Tyska/Bay
Area News Group)
By DIETER KURTENBACH | dkurtenbach@bayareanewsgroup.com | Bay Area News
Group
PUBLISHED: April 21, 2023 at 9:30 a.m. | UPDATED: April 21, 2023 at 4:05
p.m.
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2023/04/21/kurtenbach-kevon-looney-the-warriors-irreplaceable-colossus-keeps-proving-hes-a-golden-state-legend/

SAN FRANCISCO — Build a statue, retire his number, and put his name on
the court.

Whatever you would normally do for a Warriors legend, do for Kevon Looney.

The Warriors’ center has been taken for granted during this team’s
dynastic run, but it would be criminal if Looney’s impact floated into
obscurity once his career ends. The next generation needs reminders —
big, overt gestures — of the understated but significant impact of the
Warriors’ center.

Almost nothing Looney does will make a highlight video, but nearly
everything he does affects winning.

And Thursday night, with the Warriors’ season on the line, he turned in
a game for the ages.

The Warriors were without their top two defenders — Gary Payton II and
Draymond Green — and playing the best offense, statistically, in the
history of the NBA.

The Warriors were without their primary offensive distributor, Green,
and were playing a team that seemed to know every answer to the tests in
Games 1 and 2.

And the Warriors had been pushed around in Games 1 and 2 by a younger,
livelier Kings team.

Oh, and if the Warriors lost, the season was effectively over.

Yes, the stakes were high. The challenge was significant.

So Looney went out and pulled down 20 grown-man rebounds, nine
offensive, dished out nine assists, and put Kings center Domantas
Sabonis in a straightjacket.

Ho-hum.

Yes, the Warriors might have looked old in the first two games of the
series, but Looney’s old-man game was exactly what the Dubs needed to
save their season.

The simple things he did turned the game — and perhaps the series — for
the Dubs.

Things like rebounding with body position and not one’s arms. That was a
Looney priority going into the game. It created second-chance points in
bunches (24, twice as many as Sacramento) and allowed the Warriors to
push the ball in transition.

“We are pretty tough to slow down when we get out,” Looney said. “We are
pretty tough in space.”

Things like making the right pass — which is rarely the flashy pass —
when the Kings trapped Steph Curry.

“I don’t get a lot of play-making opportunities all the time, but
tonight was my night, and did the right decisions,” Looney said. “I just
hit the open man.”

Things like understanding that home court in the playoffs affords teams
an increased level of physicality and pushing Sabonis around like the
rules didn’t apply to him, while also giving his Warriors teammates a
chance to collapse into the paint.

“They just came out with a greater sense of urgency than what we had,”
Kings forward Harrison Barnes said. “They definitely got us out of what
we normally do.”

When Looney dunks, he seems to barely get over the rim. He averages
seven points per game and doesn’t shoot 3-pointers. Most of his blocks
come when he has both feet on the ground.

Looney’s game is easy to forget.

But his impact is omnipresent, even in games where he doesn’t pull down
20 rebounds.

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Over the years, where would the Warriors be without his screen setting?
His passing? His defensive smarts and his ability to defend James Harden
on the perimeter or 7-footers in the paint?

This man — and he is unquestionably that in a game full of boys — went
from being a one-time five-star, do-it-all wing prospect, to a late
first-round pick, to having surgeries on both hips, to becoming a
stalwart center, good for 82 games, on a team that rosters one center.

He long ago become indispensable and irreplaceable to the Warriors, but
Thursday was another reminder.

If you want to know why Golden State has been able to extend this
dynasty into the 2020s — and for another few days in 2023, at the very
least — look to Looney, the champion of the Warriors Way.

And while Looney’s game goes unappreciated by most, it serves as a test
to those who claim to know basketball.

No true fan of the sport isn’t a fan of Kevon Looney — the ultimate pro.

“This is who he is,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after Game 3. “We’ve
seen it in the playoffs for years now. He’s always locked into the game
plan. He never makes mistakes. He rebounds like crazy. He makes the
right decision. The game is much simpler when Loon is out there for our
guys.”

Or, to phrase it in a question I’ve been asking for years:

What more could you want in a basketball player?

--
Dieter Kurtenbach | Sports Columnist
Sports columnist Dieter Kurtenbach analyzes the amazing and roasts the
absurd in the world of sports for the Bay Area News Group. He was
previously a national sports columnist for Fox Sports and a staff writer
at the South Florida Sun Sentinel. He can also be heard on KNBR
(104.5-FM, 680-AM). He graduated from the University of Missouri in
Columbia, Mo., with a BA degree in journalism.