Former UCLA Bruin Kevon Looney saw his tenure with the Golden State Warriors end earlier this month. The veteran center signed a deal in free agency with the New Orleans Pelicans. At the time it felt like a natural move for the longtime Warrior to get one last payday in the NBA, but Looney’s comments following his move to New Orleans made it seem things didn’t end on a good note in San Francisco.
Looney appeared on the “Warriors Plus/Minus” podcast hosted by longtime Warriors writer Marcus Thompson II. Looney discussed his exit from the Warriors and the team’s decision to turn to rookie center Quentin Post instead of Looney in this year’s playoffs.
“I guess,” Looney said when Thompson II asked him if Post was the final straw for him. “I wouldn’t say it like that, but it was anybody but me it seemed like at this point. It wasn’t no one moment. Even this year, probably the playoffs. We going up against Steven Adams. This is what I do. They’re not really giving me the chance to really let me do what I do. “It’s like, ‘All right, y’all don’t trust me? I thought y’all trusted me.’ They put me at the end in Game 7, it’s like why’d we have to wait for that point?”
Golden State would eventually defeat the Rockets in the first round, but it wasn’t easy. Houston forced a Game 7 after the Warriors held a 3-1 lead in the series. Looney appeared in 12 playoff games for the Warriors but averaged just 10 minutes per game, down significantly from his playoff career average of 19.2 minutes per game.
“You get sick of that at some point,” Looney said. “When you prove yourself the first four, five years, all right, cool. But after 10 years of it, it’s like, all right. You either trust me or you don’t.”
Looney had a tremendous Warriors career but he will see it end on a sour note. This has become a common theme in recent years with Klay Thompson, Jordan Poole and Kevin Durant all leaving the team in a state of frustration.