SAN FRANCISCO– The day was only half over for Golden State Warriors' wing Gui Santos by the time I got a chance to talk to him.
He'd just come from a long massage session, a small relief after an even longer promo shoot with the video team. And before that, he and the Warriors wrapped up an intense early morning team practice, their first after a condensed four-game-six-night stretch of basketball.
Knowing that, as Santos sat his sore 6-foot-7 frame into the chair across from me, I wouldn't have blamed him if he decided to phone it in for this interview. Especially since the guy still had a workout, a lift session, and another shootaround on the docket to get to afterwards.
But as I started lobbing my questions and Santos began answering them, I found myself forgetting how busy and exhausting his life has been as of late. Nothing about Santos' demeanor, nor his answers, reminded me of a player who just logged 149 minutes across the last four games, the most in his young career. Just a smiley guy talking about all the hard work it took to get the NBA.
And so, I asked Santos a question that'd been on my mind most of this season. The question that'd been brewing as he went from an end-of-the-bench, matchup-dependent role-player to one of Steve Kerr's most trusted guys and a player worthy of the three-year, $15-million extension he signed at the beginning of March.
Where does all this positivity come from?
“[It comes from] just being in the NBA another day,” Santos told ClutchPoints. “I like to say that a lot. I don't remember who told me that once, but somebody said to me, the worst day in the NBA is the best day everywhere else. So for me, just to be here, even if it's a bad day, I'm just gonna always have a smile on my face and just gonna be ready for another day.”
Where Gui Santos's love of basketball began
To get another day in the NBA, and another day after that, is a dream come true for Santos. A dream he first conceived of, watching his father, Deivisson, hoop in the Novo Basquete Brasil (NBB) professional league.
“That would make me fall in love with basketball,” Santos said of his memories watching his father in the Brazilian professional leagues.
In those days, Santos would sit right beside his mother, Lucineide, waiting for just the right moment in the flow of the game to sprint onto the court. Because there weren’t that many fans watching the games, Santos could get away with dribbling and shooting on the empty side of the court while the action was being played on the other side. But that didn’t mean the games couldn’t get packed. And when they did, they’d get loud.
“I remember the first time I heard the fans chanting his name,” Santos recalled. “I was like, Oh, that's nice. Like, everybody's saying my name like that? I want to be like him one day.”
Santos would follow in his father’s footsteps, pursuing his love of basketball professionally. But his journey to make his hoop dreams a reality was anything but certain.
First steps in Santa Cruz and the G-League
When the Warriors drafted Santos with the 55th pick in the 2022 NBA Draft out of Brazil, on the advice of a former Golden State guard and Brazilian legend, Leandro Barbosa, he was mostly an afterthought.
With the then-reigning champions angling their post-Stephen Curry future around their recent lottery picks, the chances of Santos carving out a piece in Golden State’s timeline were slim.
Barely 20 years old and a scrawny 185 pounds, it would be a win for Santos and the team if he could make it through Summer League. But he did make it through Summer League, earning himself a contract with the Warriors' G-League affiliate down in Santa Cruz. And that's where his development would really begin.
The first two things the coaches down in Santa Cruz told Santos he had to do if he wanted to stick around were to get his weight up and give up the ball.
185 lbs was too light for the 3-and-D wing they foresaw in Santos. And while Santos made his name down in Brazil as a point guard, he'd have to make his name in the G-League by playing off-ball. By cutting and slashing and spotting up in the corner. Basically, a complete physical and mental reconfiguration of his basketball self.
“The hardest part [of that transition] was not understanding that there is no problem,” Santos recounted. “When I got here, I thought that I got to score 30 points in the G-League, so I [could] make it to the NBA. But that was a great thing with the Santa Cruz staff… they just came to me like, you don't need to score a lot of points. You just got to play the right way and play with energy. Find Steph [Curry] and all that. So that was what I did.”
Adjusting to the culture shock of America
Burning “Find Steph” into your brain is a good way to carve out a role on the Warriors. But to even get an opportunity to pass Curry the ball, Santos first had to get onto the court next to him.
And so Santos's first year in the G-League was spent lifting weights and adjusting his game to thrive off the ball. Days of drilling the principles of point-five basketball into his head, while also bumping up his calorie count and reorienting his diet for the NBA program.
And along with having to reconfigure his game came the culture shock. The language barrier wasn’t too much of an issue for Santos, but the atmosphere, on the other hand, was an adjustment.
“Here in America, the people are more cold than they are in Brazil,” Santos explained. “In Brazil, we are very receptive to everybody. On the street, you just find a random guy. You talk with them for a little bit, then you're already going into their home, and they're making dinner for you, and you turn into friends. Here, everybody is more in their own lives, doing their own things.”
Sure, there were plenty of happy culture shocks in store for Santos.
Santos laughed when recalling the time when an equipment manager brought out two colorways of his favorite shoe, the Nike GT Cut. Santos thought he could only pick one of the GT Cuts until the equipment manager said they were both for him, to his surprised delight. And the news only got better when Santos learned that the gig also came with as many socks as he could want.
But the coldness of American individualism was a lot to take in. Back in Brazil, Santos was used to locker rooms full of loud music and festive dancing pregame. But in Santa Cruz, it was only AirPods and headphones.
Regardless, Santos’s G-League grind is one that Pat Spencer continued to admire. Spencer, Santos's long-time teammate both in Santa Cruz and now on the Warriors, remembers the exhausting treks back and forth between Santa Cruz and San Francisco that the two shared. He remembers all the dinners and long conversations they had as they pursued their goal of securing an NBA contract.
For Spencer, it's special to see Santos reach his current level.
“He came in here with heavy feet and a little baby fat,” Spencer told ClutchPoints. “He's transformed himself. One of the hardest workers… You can go back and look at pictures and see how much he transformed his body. Just put in the work, so, special to see.”
Earning his place in Steve Kerr's rotation
That hard work in the G-League earned Santos a spot at the end of Kerr's bench in 2024 after dominating his minutes with Santa Cruz. However, on a contending team featuring wings and forwards like Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green, the minutes weren't there, making playing time scarce.
But Santos stayed the course. He asked Steve Kerr what he needed to do to play, and he told him to play with energy. And when the opportunities arrived, Santos wasted no time heeding Kerr's word. Since Butler's season-ending injury, Santos has averaged 14.0 points, 5.6 rebounds, and 3.6 assists in 25 games, becoming one of Golden State’s most reliable guys in what seems to be unreliable times. Hence, his mid-season extension.
Assistant coach Terry Stotts noted Santos’ leaps offensively, namely his ball handling, one-on-one skills, and shooting. But the long-time NBA coach also pointed to the work Santos put in when nothing was ever certain. It’s a leap that’s impressive because the opportunity was never promised to him.
“To keep working, even though you're not necessarily getting an opportunity to show it. It's when you're not playing in the games, but you're still working on it in practice, off hours, things like that, so that when that opportunity comes, you're able to take advantage of it.”
And Santos adds something beyond just raw stats and numbers. There’s a joy he brings to the locker room with his smile. A respect he commands because of his arduous journey. It’s contagious and palpable, and in Kerr’s eyes, makes an impact.
“I would recommend all Brazilians for a locker room,” Kerr said. “There’s a culture of spirit and energy and joy in Brazil. Barbosa had it, Anderson Varejão had it. You can feel it. And Gui is so pure-hearted. What he’s done to get here, the guys see it. They respect him, they appreciate him. And then that smile, the joy for life, joy for playing basketball, it makes a huge impact on the locker room.”
Gui Santos' next steps
As for what’s next for the 23-year-old Brazilian after reaching his NBA dream, Santos still has some goals. He wants to win an NBA championship. And not just for himself but also so that Curry can get his fifth ring, helping one of his basketball idols growing up achieve even greater NBA immortality.
But he also wants to be an all-star one day. Namely, the first Brazilian all-star. A lofty goal, Santos knows, but one that he’s passionate about.
“I know that is tough, there is a lot of work to do,” Santos said. “It's easy to say that is a goal, but at the same time, I work. I’ll do everything that I need to do to try to be a part of [the All-Star game].”
So while Santos isn’t settling for where he’s at, every day in the NBA remains a blessing. And unsurprisingly, the work remains the same. As Santos left the interview, I asked him where he was off to next, and he pointed toward the weight room.
“Gotta keep working! We got the Timberwolves tomorrow!” Santos said giddily as he sprinted to his next appointment.
