The Golden State Warriors organization was named the 2016 ENCORE winner on Monday night. It’s a prestigious award, given by the Stanford Graduate School of Business to the entrepreneurial company of the year. Past winners include Google, Apple and Twitter. This is the first time a sports organization has won it. It was a big deal for the organization, so much so that majority owner Joe Lacob not only showed up to accept the award, but brought Bob Myers, Kevin Durant and Andre Iguodala with him. During the ceremony, they each candidly answered questions about their Finals loss and getting Durant in free agency.Durant said the Warriors collapse, losing a 3-1 lead in the NBA Finals is one of the big reasons he chose to join the team. Andre Iguodala agreed that they probably wouldn’t have gotten Durant had they won the 2016 title. Iguodala also said the loss will drive them to win.
“I said this after we lost. Losing this game might propel us to four championships. Then when you go recruit a guy who’s available like this, once every 25 years. If we would’ve won, I don’t know if we would’ve got him. We lose, got a chance and there’s a chance to go after four or however many we possibly got a chance to get. You understand that – J Cole is a rapper and he says that, ‘There’s beauty in pain and there’s struggle in success.’ That was the beauty in the pain. In the Finals, we made a lot of mistakes we can fix. But going through that struggle and getting something like this, hopefully we can do great things.”
source: Mercury News
