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With star guard Steph Curry as the frontman, the Golden State Warriors generally have a cute and cuddly image — other than that one guy that “accidentally” kicks other players in their private parts.
But when the prospects emerged of facing the Jazz, and not the Clippers, in the second round of the playoffs, some of the Warriors moaned through the media about having to spend a few nights in Salt Lake City, rather than in Los Angeles.
“There’s no nightlife in Utah,” forward Matt Barnes told ESPN.com.
Curry took the high road, saying it’s the playoffs and you should be focused on basketball, no matter what city you’re in.
But not all did.
“ ... Utah, it can kind of lull you to sleep,” forward Andre Iguodala told the World Wide Leader. “And then you’ve slept too long or I’m bored out of my mind and now you got to try to pump yourself up for the game. You know you’re in the playoffs and you’re supposed to be pumped anyway, but the vibe is just like, ‘Man, let’s just get out of here.’”
This from a team that plays its home games in Oakland.
As a former resident (for nearly four years in the early 1970s), and an occasional return visitor when the NCAAs are in town, we offer up a few things to help the Warriors better enjoy their stay in SLC:
- Visit Temple Square, located downtown and the starting point for all things directional. Learn about the Mormon faith. Consider converting. But please wear a shirt.
- Visit Lagoon, an amusement park just north of Salt Lake. Put Draymond Green in the front of one the rides and see how it does on those sharp corners.
- Rent a van and drive about an hour south to Provo. Tour the BYU campus. See if they’ve erected a statue of Danny Ainge. Or Kresimir Cosic.
- If they really want to get away (and not to L.A.), rent a plane to Spokane and run in Bloomsday today. Since the Warriors don’t seem to be working up too much of a sweat against the Jazz, perhaps they could check the exercise box for the day with a little 7.46-mile run/jog/walk.
Imagine the goodwill of mingling with 50,000 others for a couple of hours.
- Rent a bicycle and tour the downtown area. Walking around downtown SLC in March, we noticed several spots where a handful of bikes were locked up. You could swipe a card and “check out” a bike. You were charged for as long as you had the bike, and you could return it to any of the locations where they stocked the bikes. Even better, they have bike lanes on many downtown streets.
- Sponsor a homeless person. Every big city has them; a mission only a few blocks from the Jazz arena means you can’t help but walk by them. After a few days in town, you get to know them, and for the most part, they’re cordial.
- Curry being an avid golfer, perhaps he could wrangle up a foursome and challenge any of the nice courses in the Salt Lake area. One option would be Meadow Brook in suburban Taylorsville, where a longtime Spokane golf pro, many years ago, won a state high school individual golf title, and led the Granite Farmers to the team title.
His alma mater no longer exists, but the Farmers’ home course remains.
- As a team-building exercise, split up into four teams of four (coaches and other support personnel can also be included), descend on all the local stores and see who can find the most bags of Clover Club potato chips.
Clover Club was once a popular local brand of chip in Utah — one of my favorite field trips was to the Clover Club potato chip plant in Kaysville, Utah. As near as I can tell, they are only available at Smith’s Food and Drug, and at Reams Food Stores in Salt Lake. The nearest place around here that I could find them was at a Smith’s in Kalispell.
Wherever, shelf space for Clover Club chips seems to be getting smaller and smaller, as they are wedged in among the “name brand” chips.
Anyway, whatever bags of chips the Warriors don’t want to take home to their wives, girlfriends and kids (not sure what the rules are on charter flights — on a regular flight the chips could get roughed up and/or bumped) can be shipped to an undisclosed location in North Idaho. We’ll take care of them.
Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via email at mnelke@cdapress.com. Follow him on Twitter@CdAPressSports.