Steph explains how A’s leaving Oakland ‘sucks’ for community

Steph explains how A’s leaving Oakland ‘sucks’ for community originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area

Steph Curry cares for Oakland.

The Warriors superstar, entering season No. 16 with the franchise, spent a decade playing at Oracle Arena just feet away from the Coliseum and long has been involved with the community.

The Athletics being the latest professional team to abandon the town stings deep for Curry. Even though he and Golden State have called Chase Center in San Francisco home since the 2020-21 NBA season, the former East Bay resident is feeling for, well, everyone who received the short end of the stick.

“I think overall, it’s a sad situation because sports franchises — to borrow a line from a good friend of mine — it’s a sense of hope and inspiration for a community whenever you start a year,” Curry told reporters Monday at Warriors Media Day. “It’s like a way to galvanize that hope and that unity and that togetherness and having something to look forward to and not just what it does for the economics of that city.”

The Warriors averaged 18,027 fans during the 2008-09 season before Golden State selected Curry at No. 7 overall in the 2009 NBA Draft. Four NBA championships later, the Warriors left Oakland having averaged a sell-out of 19,596 fans for six consecutive seasons. The arena and stadium’s lot routinely was packed regardless of the home teams’ records — just remember the A’s Coliseum funeral, which hosted 46,889 in a tear-jerking win over the Texas Rangers on Thursday.

Curry knows Oakland has had its teams’ backs for generations, through good and plenty bad. He also understands that A’s fans — many of whom are or were Warriors or Raiders fans — are reeling and that the baseball team’s divorce from the Bay Area affects much more than the game.

“What Oakland has meant to me, to say the least, has been huge — in the way that I came up in this league, to be able to play in front of that fanbase for those 10 years and knowing the history of the A’s, the Raiders and the Warriors there [Oakland],” Curry said. “It sucks.”

“Around what me and Ayesha are trying to do…

Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/steph-explains-leaving-oakland-sucks-021503502.html

Author : NBC Sports BayArea

Publish date : 2024-10-01 02:15:03

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