ATKINSON on Kuminga/Podziemski: “NBA teams say no you can’t do 6 of those”; Draymond “took over film

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TRANSCRIPT (full transcript in Comments and on website https://www.letsgowarriors.com)

00:13 KENNY ATKINSON,
PREGAME GSW-CLE: I think I've said this before, it was finishing school for me. Seeing a great leader like Steve, how he conducted, really, coached through crisis at times. You go through tough times and I thought he was brilliant, so, and obviously, we had a lot of high tension, pressure filled games. And you're right there observing all this and then you learn from great players, which is probably just as important. Steph Draymond, Klay, those guys taught me a lot about the game. And again, thinking moments there, being down to Boston in a series and just seeing how everybody came together and reacted and how Draymond led to-- took over the film session, quite honestly. And so it was great. Steve understands leadership as well as anybody in the biz, any coach I've ever been around. And then Draymond, Steph, those guys are the best. Great players, but also great leaders.
03:17 Hey Kenny, going back to what you were talking about with Golden State and learning how to coach and pressure situations, this year for you guys there is pressure, there are expectations. So what specifically did you learn from Steve about how to manage that with the guys?
03:36 Steve is very confident. Steve's a risk taker. Like, he's not conventional. And there's a difference between a risk taker and then a risk taker when pressure situations come. And I could give you probably 10 examples where he was willing to change a coverage, change-- lineup changes. You could probably-- like, all of a sudden you're throwing Gary Payton in the starting lineup when he hasn't been starting in the Finals. He, and I think to win big or anything, you gotta be, you gotta be able to take risks and that really stuck with me, right? And he was willing to roll with it. There was no doubt. We're doing this. Let's go. So that was really cool to see.
06:03 You were in Golden State when both Kuminga and Podziemski entered the league. How have you seen those guys grow since then?
06:10 Oh man. I mean, two really good players. Two guys I respect a lot and they were thrown into, obviously, not an easy situation in terms of, this is kind of a ready made machine. And I think they both adapted well, right? Now, they're kind of in this transition period and being more aggressive. They're starting to find their footing in terms of being more aggressive with their own game, but in the beginning when I was there, it was like, man, fit in. Like, screen for Steph, cut, all that stuff. And Steve, I think Steve's done a good job, too, to give those guys a little more freedom to be more aggressive, but yeah, I mean, both of them are really, really good players. I just hope they don't come in and kick our tail tonight.
08:45 How much of a challenge is that for a coach to ask somebody to do that, because you're basically telling the guy, like, limit yourself.
08:58 For the betterment of the team and I don't know what young player wants to hear that, right? They want to, I think everything around them is how can I get in my, how can I get my game off, right? So I think it's really hard and that's the hard part of this league right now with younger guys coming into the league. They have kind of all this freedom, whatever their path is, they have a lot of freedom. They have the ball in their hands all the time and now they come to the NBA saying, NBA teams say, no, you can't do six of those things, just do these two things. So that's, and not…

[truncated at various parts due to Description character limitation … more/entire Transcript: https://www.letsgowarriors.com]

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From Golden State Warriors at Cleveland Cavaliers, held at Rocket Arena in Cleveland, OH, on December 6, 2025.

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