The Warriors have had guests both human and robotic visit
their practice this season. On Tuesday, however, music moguls Andre ‘Dr.
Dre’ Young and Jimmy Iovine made an appearance at Rakuten Performance
Center.
The duo’s presence caused many of the players to do a double-take.
“It’s pretty awesome,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr admitted. “Our guys are pretty pumped up.
The duo, who attended Tuesday’s practice at the behest of
the team’s director of player programs Jonnie West, came to conduct the
team’s annual business of basketball sanctioned by the National
Basketball Player’s
Association. However, this year’s meeting came with a
twist.
“Usually we just talk about the salary cap,” Kerr said. “But this is a little more interesting.
Young built his music empire as a member of the Compton,
CA-based rap group NWA. Dre is also known for classic albums like “The
Chronic,” released in 1992, and 1999’s “Chronic 2001,” selling more than
14 million albums in his career as a solo artist. In 2008, Dre founded
Beats by Dre headphones along with Iovine, before selling the
conglomerate for an estimated $3 billion in 2014.
“Dre has impacted music in general,” Green said. “In the
black community in general. To go from music to one of the biggest CEOs
we’ve seen, showing kids that hope, giving kids that hope coming from
Compton. It just showing that there are ways out.”
Conversely, Iovine made his name working with the musical
acts like John Lennon, and Brittney Spears, building Interscope records
into one of the biggest record imprints in music.
Iovine and Young’s journey was immortalized in HBO’s “Defiant Ones,” a documentary which had a big impact on the Warriors.
Forward Kevin Durant admitted to watching every day for a
month last summer, while Green credited Young and Iovine’s ability to
collaborate despite coming from different backgrounds as inspiration for
his team
Said Green: “You got guys in what we do who come from this
end of the spectrum and you got a guy that comes from way over here and
making all of that work is special.”
Green is an endorser of Beats headphones, and is a friend of
Flint, Mich.,-based rapper Jon Connor, who is signed to Young’s
Aftermath Entertainment. Young also signed Detroit rapper Eminem in
1998. More recently, Young has been instrumental in the careers of
Grammy Award-winning artists like Kendrick Lamar and Anderson Paak.
“Some of his best work was behind the scenes,” said Green.
“He made other people great and I think that’s the thing that made him
so special.”
The presence of Young and Iovine were the latest for the
Warriors this season. After an Oct. 16 preseason game in China, Kerr
invited tennis star Roger Federer to speak with the team. Prior to a
Nov. 24 matchup against the Chicago Bull, BB-8 of the Star Wars
franchise greeted the team at the morning shootaround.
