Advertisement

‘Those are things I’ll never forget,’ says Juan Toscano-Anderson of winning a title with the Golden State Warriors

Golden State Warriors champion forward Juan Toscano-Anderson may have jumped ship to join the Los Angeles Lakers, but the Dubs will always be a part of the Oakland native. Conversely, because of his hand in the Warriors’ 2022 title, the team and JTA will forever be entangled.

And to Toscano-Anderson, that’s the way things should be, given Golden State was a formative force in shaping the Californian into the basketball player he is today. Speaking with Warriors Wire in Mexico City for a basketball camp he hosts in his family’s ancestral country, Toscano-Anderson related what it was like for a local son such as himself to win a title with the team representing his Bay Area Warriors.

“It was amazing,” said the former Duns wing. “I think the most amazing part was being at the parade.”

“I would go to the Warriors’ parades I can back in 2015-16 when they were first winning, and I would be out in the crowd,” he added.

“Obviously, that’s a different perspective. I’m looking at the players, but as a player on the bus and looking into the crowd and seeing everybody like I see friends, family, people that I grew up with, colleagues, et cetera. So, I felt like the celebration was more for me personally. I felt like the celebration was more like, ‘Wow, this is for Oakland!’, as opposed to ‘Damn, I just want a championship with the Warriors’. It was a combination of both, but it just hit different for me because I’ve been a Warriors fan my whole life — Speedy Claxton and Bob Sura are point guards I thought were the most amazing people in the world. They were huge when I was growing up, among my favorite players.”

“Now to win a championship but to do it with guys like Steph Curry and Draymond Green and Klay Thompson, those are special moments,” said Toscano-Anderson. “Those are things I’ll never forget.”

The Warriors champion has since become a Los Angeles Laker, but the ties that bind him to the Bay will never break.

To win an NBA title is among the rarest achievements an NBA player can accomplish in a career. To do it in one’s hometown, however — that’s something most NBA players only ever dream of.

This post originally appeared on Warriors Wire.

[mm-video type=video id=01g7sczp9yhh619pf6sx playlist_id=01eqbzegwgnrje4tv2 player_id=01eqbvq570kgj8vfs7 image=https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/video/thumbnail/mmplus/01g7sczp9yhh619pf6sx/01g7sczp9yhh619pf6sx-163169c1ffe10fca1297aeffdce98109.jpg]

Story originally appeared on Warriors Wire