Golden State veteran Marreese Speights, who played at UF for two seasons, is back in the NBA Finals. (Photo: NBA.com)
A Champion at UF, Speights Seeks Second NBA Title with Warriors
Wednesday, June 1, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Scott Carter
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Speights won title with Gators in his first season in 2007
By: Scott Carter, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Marreese Speights is older and wiser than the 6-foot-10 version who once created matchup problems around the SEC. Speights, now an eight-year NBA veteran who is chasing a second consecutive NBA title, understands the peaks and valleys of the game at its highest level.
He has experienced them firsthand.
So after Golden State became just the 10th team in NBA history Monday night to overcome a 3-1 playoff deficit to win Game 7 against Oklahoma City, the former Gators starter made sure to find his college coach, Billy Donovan, for a final word as confetti dropped from the rafters at Oracle Arena.
Marreese Speights during his time with the Gators. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA)
"I just told Coach congratulations for all the success he had for being a rookie coach in this league,'' Speights said on the phone the next night. "Too bad some somebody had to lose, but at the end of the day it's a business. Our relationship is far more than basketball. I'm proud of the things he did and of the things he is going to do in the future."
It wasn't easy, but the Warriors survived the Western Conference Finals and now face LeBron James and Cleveland in the NBA Finals starting Thursday night.
Speights stood out as a sidebar in the OKC series – and for more than his connection to Donovan, the former Gators coach who fell a win shy of leading the Thunder to the Finals in his first season.
After the Warriors were blown out in Game 4 in Oklahoma City, Speights was one of the few Golden State players to surface on social media.
He fired a bold message.
"Y'all never seen a 73-win team,'' Speights posted on Twitter. "Y'all never seen a player win unanimous MVP. Haha this story not over!! history believe"
Prophet Mo Buckets spoke and delivered.
Speights provided his best performance of the series in Game 5, a 120-111 victory in which he scored 14 points in nine minutes off the bench. Nine of those points came in a four-minute flurry in the second quarter that ignited the Oracle crowd the way Speights – hence the Mo Buckets nickname he has picked up during his three seasons with the Warriors – is known to do.
What prompted the tweet after Game 4?
"I just know the team man,'' he said. "We've got a team of guys with big hearts. We understand that after we got down 3-1, the whole world was going to count us out. But in the locker room, we knew we were going to bounce back.
"On the plane ride back, everybody was still laughing and playing around and doing what we do. We knew we would be alright. We enjoyed the process. We went quarter by quarter, half by half. We made sure we handled business, do what we did all year. Like I said, people ain't seen 73 wins."
The Warriors, led by league MVP Steph Curry, won an NBA-record 73 games during the regular season and will try to defeat the Cavaliers for the second consecutive year in the Finals. If Golden State wins, it will mark the sixth consecutive season a former UF player has won an NBA title.
In the final year of his contract, Speights continues to play a vital role off the bench for the Warriors. He averaged 7.1 points and 3.3 rebounds per game during the regular season and is averaging 7.1 points and 2.2 rebounds in 17 playoff games, averaging 9.9 minutes per game.
Speights won an NCAA title with the Gators in 2007 and after averaging 14.8 points and 8.1 rebounds his second season at UF, he opted to enter the NBA Draft. Philadelphia chose him with the 16th overall pick and after three-plus seasons with the 76ers, Speights bounced from Memphis to Cleveland and finally to Golden State, where he signed as a free agent in July 2013.
Speights' instant offense off the bench and willingness to give up his body defensively – he drew 29 charges in the 2014-15 season, second-most in the NBA – have made him a fan favorite in the San Francisco Bay region.
Back in the Tampa Bay area, where Speights grew up, he is also popular. St. Petersburg awarded the homegrown Speights a key to the city last summer when he returned home with the Larry O'Brien Trophy after the Warriors won the NBA title.
Speights said his time with the Warriors, "definitely a different kind of team," has been an eye opener.
"This experience has helped me a lot as a man and being a better player on and off the court,'' he said. "I've just grown up maturity-wise. Being around this success, being around this franchise, being around this city that embraces you more like a college atmosphere, it helps me a lot.
"We all know it's a business, and a lot of things might change at the end of the year, but whatever it is, you've just got to be prepared for any situation. I always enjoy the process and understand that anything you go through is going to be a learning experience now and in the future."
That sounds like something Donovan might have told him during their time together at UF.
Donovan recalled Speights fondly during the Warriors-Thunder series.
"He has a good heart, and I think leaving early like he did, I'm sure there's a tremendous transition he had to go through in terms of getting into great shape, working and understanding the NBA game,'' Donovan told reporters. "But I've always loved Mo as a guy, and it's great to see him stay in the league as long as he has and have the success that he's had.
"He's really grown a lot."
Speights said goodbye to Donovan on Monday. He is ready to say hello to the Cavs on Thursday.
We'll have to wait and see if he has any prophetic tweets during the series.
"When you challenge a great team like us, we cherish the moment,'' he said. "We've been there and are battle-tested. It's going to be a good series. They have been playing good the whole playoffs and have really found their rhythm. As long as we play Warriors basketball, we feel like no one can beat us four times in a seven-game series. We are a bunch of confident guys after beating OKC in Game 7."
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