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Kings' veteran guard Dennis Schröder ready to run point with his new team originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SACRAMENTO – Almost to a man, the Kings spent much of Monday’s media day gushing about the offseason acquisition of Dennis Schröder.

The 32-year-old point guard is part of general manager Scott Perry’s makeover meant to get his squad back to being relevant after an overwhelmingly disappointing 2024-25 NBA campaign left fans wringing their hands and muttering in frustration when they walked out of a beam-less Golden 1 Center last season.

First-time head coach Doug Christie was at the forefront, leading the cheers. Schröder was a player the coach had been eyeing for some time, and Christie sounded like a kid on Christmas morning while talking to reporters about the veteran point guard during Monday’s media day.

“Identifying Dennis in the offseason was big for me,” Christie said. “I’m a super, super fan. I really appreciate how he brings his heart to the game. Handing him the basketball makes me feel real comfortable that he’s going to bring the right type of demeanor and leadership and all of those things.

“As a coach, I want him to exemplify me on the floor. And if you guys know me, I’m a little rough and I think that that is a lot of what you see with him. He’s not backing down. Super excited to have him, super excited that he is our point guard and leading us into the future.”

Signing Schröder to a three-year, $45 million contract over the summer solved the Kings’ biggest offseason question.

Sacramento has been without a true point guard since trading away De’Aaron Fox early last season. Zach LaVine played out of position and ran the point for most of the season after Fox’s departure, with Keon Ellis coming off the bench to orchestrate the offense while LaVine rested.

Schröder’s arrival theoretically should bring some stability to Sacramento’s backcourt, a sentiment that is shared by several of his new teammates, who expressed their fondness after he helped Germany capture the gold medal at the FIBA EuroBasket tournament.

“True guard, veteran guard that knows the game,” Malik Monk said. “Just came off MVP (In EuroBasket). Not too many people can say that and come back and play in the NBA. That just shows how great he is of a player.”

Kings’ big man Domantas Sabonis echoed Monk, pointing out Schroder’s international success as being a key factor.

“Dennis is fantastic,” Sabonis said. “He’s been proving it in FIBA the last couple of years, doing amazing things. (Has) a high IQ and who can get all of us in the right position.”

Therein lies the rub.

Schröder has made his bones in the NBA by playing tight, efficient and gritty defense. A first-round pick by the Atlanta Hawks in 2013, he will be asked to bring that same intensity to the state capital while being handed the reigns to run Christie’s offense.

It’s a challenge Schröder welcomed, given that the Kings’ offensive firepower trio of scorers in Sabonis, LaVine and DeMar DeRozan should make facilitating the offense pretty easy.

“How we want to play, everybody is touching the ball, everybody is sharing it,” Schröder said. “We play fast. Everybody shooting a lot of threes, putting pressure on the rim. I think that’s the most fun playing basketball. I think everybody just going to be engaged defensively. I think it starts there and then offensively.

“If we commit on winning basketball, I think we’re going to be really, really tough. It starts tomorrow with training camp, getting on the same page, everybody being focused and willing to commit to basketball, winning basketball.”

Schröder brings a lot more to the Kings than just his defense and the ability to run an offense. With 12 years of experience under his belt, Schroder brings a voice of experience and leadership that should benefit a team with a young roster like Sacramento’s.

“I think just playing with pace, defensively, picking up 94 feet, bringing intensity on that end, kind of that dog mentality,” Schroder said. “Offensively playing with pace, sharing the ball, move the defense side to side, That’s how we play with the national team and we had a lot of success that way. And I hope that we can come together as a team doing the same things, and it’s going to be really, really hard to stop us then.”

As much as the spotlight is on Schröder and the Kings’ offense, his main focus will remain on defense.

“That’s my game, always try to do the right things for the team defensively,” he said. “I think we can pick it up another level. And that’s that’s the reason why I’m here. I’ve been doing this my whole life. I always had to find my way so I can impact the game. That’s just my identity. That’s how I play. And I hope that the Kings organization, my teammates love that and bring the same physicality or the same mindset.

“Because if we do that, I think it’s really, really tough to beat us and to play against us.”

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Golden State vets address Jonathan Kuminga cloud hanging over Warriors Media Day originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO – At the annual event when the NBA reintroduces itself to the world, as the Warriors did on Monday, it is incredibly difficult for a reserve player to overshadow three teammates destined for the Hall of Fame.

It ought to be impossible when that reserve is not even in the building.

Yet that’s how it played out at Chase Center. To the podium strode Stephen Curry, four-time NBA champion and one of the top 10 players in NBA history. Then came Draymond Green, four-time All-Star and a binding ingredient to those four championships. Then came Jimmy Butler, six-time All-Star making his Golden State training camp debut.

Jonathan Kuminga, reserve forward, was nowhere and everywhere.

“As leaders on the team, you have to acknowledge what’s going on and don’t make it more than what it is other than a team trying to figure out the situation that’s front of us and the challenge that’s front of us,” Curry said. “Knowing JK’s situation, knowing the new faces that we’re adding to the roster, we talk about it every year going into a training camp what it’s going to take for that particular team to win.

“This is a little different because you have a guy that’s trying to figure out his situation, and we respect that process. It’s going to play out, and when he’s here, ready to work, like we expect him to be locked in on doing what he needs to do to help us win.”

Green, co-leader of the Kuminga cheerleading camp – along with Golden State CEO Joe Lacob – more directly addressed the absence of the 22-year-old forward whose contract status has been in limbo since July.

“Any time a teammate’s not here, it sucks,” Green said. “And, obviously, not having multiple [teammates] here due to the situation, is unfortunate. Media Day marks the start of something. It marks the start of another NBA season.”

The Warriors are starting training camp with at least four roster spots unfilled. There were five vacancies before Gary Payton II re-signed Monday morning. There will be two when Al Horford and De’Anthony Melton, both of whom have agreements in place, sign contracts sometime this week. Seth Curry remains a possible addition.

Kuminga’s absence hovered like a cloud above the usually upbeat Media Day proceedings. It begat the absences of Horford, Melton and, possibly, Seth Curry. None were available as Warriors because none officially are on the roster, which vetoed Curry, Green and Butler from making specific references to them.

“If we’re talking about a guy like that, he’s won it, which I really, really respect,” Butler, speaking hypothetically, said of Horford. “And he’s been in this league for a long time for a reason. Elite defender. Can make shots. Plays basketball the right way. Super smart. More than anything, he wins.

“So, wherever that guy ends up, I know he’s going to help that team.”

Horford will end up with the Warriors. Just not yet. Same with Melton and, again, possibly Seth Curry.

This Golden State embargo is an unintended consequence of Kuminga’s contract status going unresolved through July, August and deep into September. All involved parties are inhibited – and will be until Warriors-Kuminga business is settled. The deadline for the qualifying offer – which would please neither side – is Wednesday.

“Like I tell everybody that asks me, not [only] in the media, but random people, and my friends: I’m not into all that,” Butler said. “I hope it gets resolved.”

It is, in many ways, downright astonishing that all of this revolves around someone who projects to come off the bench for the Warriors. The starting forwards are Green and Butler. The starting center will be Horford. The starting guards will be Stephen Curry and perhaps a name coach Steve Kerr picks from a hat.

The game plan of Kuminga and his agent, the intrepid Aaron Turner, is perhaps the most audacious in American professional sports. Has the contract status of a reserve, no matter the sport, ever spent an entire offseason at or near the top of a league’s news cycle? How often does reserve, no matter how talented, hold the key to a franchise completing its roster?

This months-long saga doesn’t quite match the stunning temerity Ben Simmons displayed in ghosting the overtures of the New York Knicks – a troubling indication of uninterest – but it leaves even more observers wondering where this standoff is headed.

There is tremendous potential for an enormous downside, as this summer of irresolution has laid the groundwork for an unimaginably heavy burden on Kuminga. No matter the jersey he wears, he must be spectacularly good for this to make sense.

The Warriors, at least publicly, hope it’s their team.

“Some things are pretty straightforward, some things aren’t,” Stephen Curry said. “This is definitely in the ‘aren’t’ category.

“But when he comes and he’s here, he should be a professional and do exactly what he expects to do and take advantage of his opportunities to help us win. Everybody who is in the locker room, that’s what you’re committed to do. I don’t have any concerns that he’ll approach it that way, and that’s what we expect.”

Kuminga’s status is the last thing Curry or Green or Butler hoped to address. They had no choice. They were available, and Kuminga’s absence was louder by comparison.

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Warriors excited for first full NBA season of the Jimmy Butler experience originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

SAN FRANCISCO – Warriors rookie Alex Toohey’s introduction to star teammate Jimmy Butler was more than a lesson on the court. It was an eye-opener to the other side of the NBA as he walked around Butler’s San Diego home. 

“I learned that you can do quite a few things with a bit of money,” Toohey said Monday at Warriors Media Day. 

Butler hosted his Warriors teammates for a few days as a sort of minicamp before the official start of training camp. Basketball certainly was a focal point. Everything else was just as important, if not more. 

The bigger goal one week before training camp begins was getting to know the small details of a group that is around each other more than their own families for over seven months, and even longer to reach the Warriors’ objective of contending for a championship. To become an unbreakable team, Butler, going into his 15th season, knows the intricacies of what it takes. 

Wine was flowing, stories were told and laughs were had – just like it’s supposed to go with family. As he basically trademarked last season, Butler found his joy again once he was traded to the Warriors in February. Butler made it a point after the season to find time in the offseason to be around his new teammates when his busy schedule that spans the globe allowed him to. 

But this retreat was different. He has found time to create chemistry in the past. Inviting a team into his home was an intimate decision Butler was set on doing in pursuit of his first title ahead of his first full season with the Warriors. 

“Maybe a couple times, but not at my own home, and I just wanted to be around my guys,” Butler said of his San Diego minicamp. “I got the opportunity to see a lot of them over the summer or to go where they are from. Maybe not see them, but see people I know from their neck of the woods. So it was important for me to welcome – those are guys, like my family, into my home and have a good time and let them in a little bit of my life.” 

If the 30 regular-season games and 11 playoff games Butler played after joining the Warriors was an appetizer of what’s to come, he and the Warriors are ready to devour a full four-course meal. Perhaps with a glass of Pinot on the side, too. 

“I get to do this thing from day one,” Butler said. “Be with the guys from day one and do what we started out to do from the very beginning. I’m super hyped and I’m super excited. I got to train with my guys this summer. I got to talk with all the guys. I see what they have been doing. I see how they have been working. I’m glad that I get to be here from this media day on up.” 

The Warriors were 25-26 last season before Butler’s team debut on Feb. 10. His Warriors introduction was a 21-point comeback road win against the Chicago Bulls, his original team, where Butler scored 25 points and had four assists. From that game on, the Warriors after adding Butler went 23-8 the rest of the regular season, losing the one game he missed. 

They had two different five-game win streaks and one that lasted seven games. Their success together was on the fly, learning plays and how each other operates with little time to breathe. The Warriors saw what kind of team they can be with Butler, Steph Curry and Draymond Green all healthy, and are confident a real run at another ring was on the table if Curry’s hamstring held up. 

That kind of tease has given them the ultimate confidence of a full offseason, training camp and preseason together before the real lights turn on. 

“You can build an identity from the beginning,” Green said. “Defensive terminology and all the things that you build starting in training camp, we’re able to do that this year.” 

Drama surrounded Butler going into last season, which wound up being his final one as a member of the Miami Heat. Tensions rose until they hit a boiling point, including multiple team suspensions that put an ugly end to all the good Butler did in South Beach. He’s at a completely different place one year later. 

“I think first it helps him just as a human being, as a player, to have something that he knows, a situation he knows based on how last year ended and how we do things, what he can help, continue to help us do at a high level, but then just have that clarity coming in where we can have the conversations that we were having in a very short span after the trade last year,” Curry said. “And the way that we finished playing, or our record towards the end of the year, it was fun for all of us.” 

Butler’s smile and outlook at media day matched the shine from diamonds on his ears and the rings on fingers. He’s at peace but hungry for more. The Warriors immediately signed Butler to a two-year, $111 million contract upon acquiring him in February, aligning him with Curry and Green to accomplish what those two have done four times: Win a championship. 

The reigning champion Oklahoma City Thunder are full of young players in their prime. Anthony Edwards and the Minnesota Timberwolves are coming for more. Kevin Durant and the revamped Houston Rockets are ready for battle, and Nikola Jokić’s Denver Nuggets never can be counted out. 

Neither can the Warriors. Butler knows what he’s here for and sees last season’s short-lived success as just a taste of what’s to come. 

“I don’t think we’re going to catch anybody by surprise,” Butler said. “I think everybody knows what we’re capable of. We’re ready to rock.”

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