Veteran swingman Andre Iguodala has seen his share of travel arrangements during his time with the Philadelphia 76ers to start his career and the Denver Nuggets. Yet coming into the Golden State Warriors in 2013 to a new and determined ownership group has rewarded him and his teammates with unimaginable delicacies while hitting the road throughout a grueling 82-game season.
“I tell the guys — I came into the NBA 15 years ago, and we've always had good planes. But the Warriors are pretty special,” Iguodala explained on the Christopher Lochhead Podcast. “We always tell the young guys, our rookies — ‘Listen, this isn't the real NBA. The Warriors — this isn't real. This is kind of like a fantasy land.'”
Warriors owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber have run under one motto — the very best for the very best of the NBA — and they have delivered consistently, unafraid to spend the extra buck, whether it is in signing that key guy, despite paying the luxury tax to top-of-the-line travel arrangements.
“We're a step above a good team. When I was in Philly, I would talk to our travel guy, and he'd be like, ‘We got a budget.' Teams have budgets, and some teams are really cheap. He'd be like, ‘Listen, we got a budget so we can stay in good hotels in certain cities, but other cities we can't stay in the hotels that are as good.'
“This was his idea: We stay in good hotels in good cities and bad hotels in the bad cities, because what difference does it make if you're in a bad city? Good point, so that's how we did it. But we had to budget all that out.
“But with the Warriors, there's no such thing. Everything — whatever is the best we can find. And then we actually have food set up everywhere we go with the Warriors. When we get in somewhere, there's a restaurant reserved for us. Order whatever you want, it's all set up.”
Golden State receives similar attention at home, with chefs cooking to their preference and dietary restrictions. Iguodala, who has gone vegan in the last few seasons, admits he has the occasional indulgence in Chick-Fil-A but eats vegan roughly 90 percent of the time.
The Warriors are getting one of the biggest revenues in the NBA after locking down three titles in four years, and that fortune is only bound to expand as they move to a new arena in the Chase Center in downtown San Francisco.
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