Following a tremendous career with the Golden State Warriors, former Arizona Basketball star Andre Iguodala will have his jersey retired!
Perhaps one of the unsung and underrated heroes of the Golden State Warriors dynasty these past few years has been former Wildcat, Andre Iguodala. Well, after a fantastic career in the Bay Area, Iggy will have his jersey retired.
On Sunday, it was announced by the organization via social media, that they will honor the hard-working veteran by retiring the No. 9 jersey!
Arizona Wildcats
Certainly well-deserved, since Iggy was drafted by the Philadelphia 76ers in 2004-05, and has been viewed as one of the most versatile players in the League.
Priding himself on defense, he can defend virtually every position on the floor and has been on the NBA All-Defensive Team twice because of that.
Not typically known for his offense, he has only improved from when he first got in the league, also becoming a great rebounder and passer.
The best change for Iguodala of course came when he signed with the Warriors in 2013.
His selfless style of play fit extremely well with what the Warriors wanted to do and have done for the past few years now.
When former Wildcat Steve Kerr brought this philosophy over from one of his mentors in Gregg Popovich in 2015, it has worked wonders since.
Since then, Iggy’s skill set has since been on full display, even with four other all-stars on the team. Heck he even did a tremendous job in filling the huge void left by the absence of Kevin Durant in these past finals.
Regardless, Iggy’s importance to the Warriors’ organization has been invaluable in his career.
However, his ultimate accomplishment though came in 2015, when he won the NBA Finals MVP for the Warriors en route to their first NBA Title.
While those finals were won as a group, it was Iggy’s contributions on defense, especially while guarding Lebron James that helped him to garner those honors.
James is arguably the best player in the world and still had a high-level of production, however the difference was the number of shots James took to get those numbers. In that series, James shot 38 percent from the floor, which is a huge difference from his career shooting percentage of 50 percent.
While there was still an argument for James to win the award at the time, even in a losing effort, ultimately the winning team is typically awarded more often than the losing team.
Now as he moves on from the Warriors’ organization, his legacy will live on, and the honor couldn’t come at a better time.
Here’s just a recap from Iguodala’s Finals MVP season!
At Zona Zealots, we would like to congratulate Andre Iguodala on the well-deserved honors and wish him continued success as he begins his next chapter! As always, Bear Down, Arizona!