By RUSSELL BENNETT
FOR Endeavour Hills product Andrew Bogut, it all comes down to just four more wins.
His Golden State Warriors stormed through the NBA’s regular season with 67 wins from 82 games, led by the league’s Most Valuable Player Stephen Curry in a phenomenal individual 2014/15 campaign.
But aside from earning home-court advantage against the might of megastar LeBron James and his Cleveland Cavaliers, that all counts for naught now. The slate is wiped clean.
For the second straight season, an Australian will walk away with a championship ring – either Bogut, or Cavaliers’ cult hero Matthew Dellavedova.
Both have earned rave reviews from their team-mates for their insatiable desire to win, and their willingness to do whatever it takes for their respective teams. Yet some NBA followers, and indeed some opposing players, label them as ‘dirty’.
Any avid NBA watcher would know that’s not the case, but what the pair does provide, however, is a refusal to be pushed around and a competitive edge that has played a huge role in getting the Warriors and the Cavaliers into the big dance – a shot of winning it all for two success-starved franchises.
The Cavaliers have never won a title, while the Warriors’ last championship came 40 years ago.
The coach of that Golden State team, Al Attles, was on hand to present this season’s Warriors with the Western Conference Finals’ trophy last Thursday afternoon (Australian EST). Bogut’s enormous 213-centimetre frame could be seen at the back of the dais clear as day.
The now 30-year-old has come a hell of a long way from being selected by the Milwaukee Bucks with the first overall pick in the 2005 draft, to earlier this year passing Luc Longley as the Australian to play the most NBA games.
Bogut has battled through a series of freakish injuries over his career to date but he has still played at least 65 games in seven seasons so far, and is regarded by many as one of the best passing big men of his era.
This year he was named to the NBA’s All-Defensive Second Team after holding opponents to just 41.4 percent at the rim (third best in the league) and being ranked third in defensive rating. The Warriors had a 58-9 win/loss record in games Bogut played, compared to 9-6 in games he missed.
“While you’re resting, someone else is working,” Bogut said in an interview with one of the Gazette’s sister papers – the Berwick News, in 2013.
“I always had it in the back of my mind growing up that there was a kid elsewhere training right at that moment in either Europe or America,” he said.
“And I was competing with him.”
The Australian Boomer cornerstone was cut from multiple representative teams as a teenager – his unwavering competitiveness even then wrongly branded as an “attitude problem”.
Yet after his Warriors defeated the Houston Rockets in game five of the Western Conference finals, iconic former coach Jeff Van Gundy said in his role as an ESPN commentator: “You don’t get to this level without talent, and habits. The Warriors have championship habits. When you combine great talent and depth with the right habits, you win big in this league”.
Van Gundy’s colleague, and one of the pre-eminent basketball writers of his generation, Michael Wilbon added: “Bogut and (team-mate Festus) Ezeli combined for 23 rebounds tonight. They can beat you in so many different ways”.
Bogut didn’t score in the Warriors’ Western Conference clincher, but finished with 14 rebounds, two big blocks, and countless decisive screens. In Games 2 and 3 of the series, however, he had 14 and 12 points respectively. Whatever the team needs, he’ll do it.
The Warriors have their injury concerns leading into the finals, with star shooting guard Klay Thompson concussed in game five against the Rockets after an accidental knee to the head from Houston forward Trevor Ariza. Game one of the finals is this Friday.
