Steve Kerr might be recovering from a back ailment that is going to sideline him for an undisclosed amount of time but before he elected to take a leave of absence, he decided to enlist the help of a former employer to bring his team together and have some fun.
Bleacher Report’s ‘Game of Zones’ series has been a big hit amongst both NBA fans and fans of the hit HBO show, “Game of Thrones”. B/R’s Adam and Craig Malamut — who write, animate and do the voice work themselves – were contacted to help out Kerr and make a custom video for his team. Kerr was an employee for Turner Sports for eight years and he has connections with the company, who also owns bleacher report, so the pairing was a no-brainer.
The only thing the editing team needed was some finite details to make the piece come together in a great way.
Following from Bleacher Report on the intricate details provided by Nick U’ren, (yes, that Nick U’ren, the man who possibly saved the Warriors in the finals), which made this custom edit way more enjoyable for the Warriors.
U’Ren delivered, and many of the choicest bits he relayed made it to the final cut—like these, pulled from his emails to B/R:
“Whenever Coach Kerr ends practice or gives the guys a day off, Brandon Rush always says ‘Get what you neeeeed’ in a high-pitched voice. I have attached an audio file for you to hear it yourself—that is actually his voice. It is probably the most repeated saying from our team throughout the year.”
“During an interview in the regular season Leandro Barbosa said, ‘We gonna be championship’ … which our players had a ton of fun with.”
“Iguodala has a saying he always uses (apologies for the vulgarity) when he shoots a jumper that he feels is going in: ‘Hold my [junk]!’ or sometimes it is abbreviated to just ‘Hold it!’
(Assistant coach) Ron Adams’ name for proper defensive position when guarding the ball is ‘Stick stance’ Our players love to make fun of that term. It would be great to have someone comment on Ron’s stick stance as he stood in this funky position.”
As Craig explained, there were some cutting-room-floor casualties. “The Warriors were known to sing ‘CoCo’ when traveling together last year. In the tavern scene, we wanted to have O.T. Genasis as a bard playing a medieval version of ‘CoCo’ in the background, but we didn’t have time.”
The inside jokes were a massive hit with the players, who got to see a special version of the video with an alternate ending. Curry, Thompson, Green and especially Iguodala cracked up throughout the viewing.
You can watch the full video below without the screen sharing option, courtesy of Bleacher Report.
