SAN FRANCISCO — Golden State Warriors big man Willie Cauley-Stein and veteran swingman Alec Burks will make their respective season debuts on Wednesday night against the Phoenix Suns. Cauley-Stein, who signed with the team over the summer, missed all of training camp and the first three regular-season games after injuring his left foot in a workout.
“Finally,” he said with a bit of a smile, after Wednesday’s shoot-around. “[The wait] was long. But they kept me busy. They kept me always doing something. I was always doing conditioning or weights. Or just spot shots. So I haven’t been just sitting around. I’ve been watching and being tortured. Man, I’m just so excited to be out there again.”
Cauley-Stein’s return gives the Warriors some more big man depth as the organization waits for test results for Kevon Looney. Looney, who played only 10 minutes in a season-opening loss to the Clippers, is expected to see several specialists as the Warriors evaluate “an ongoing presence of a neuropathic condition in his body.” Young big man Marquese Chriss started the team’s first two games, while Warriors head coach Steve Kerr went small in Monday night’s win over the New Orleans Pelicans, replacing Chriss with rookie guard Jordan Poole.
“I’m the biggest guy out there,” Cauley-Stein said. “So that mismatch won’t be there anymore. But it’s not being able to practice and really feel the jell. This will be the first time I even practice with these dudes in a game setting, so it’s going to be a lot of learning on the fly.”
Cauley-Stein isn’t sure how many minutes he will play Wednesday night, but he is looking forward to helping his new group out as it continues to build a new identity after so many years of winning with a veteran core. After four seasons with the Sacramento Kings, Cauley-Stein has enjoyed his brief time being in the Warriors organization.
“It’s a different vibe culturally,” Cauley-Stein said. “They’ve got a winning experience so that lingers here, you can feel it when you walk into the building. You can feel it when you talk to fans, so that comes with a big target on your back. When everybody else comes and plays you, we’re going to get everybody’s best regardless of what everybody thinks of us.”
In the midst of his answer, Cauley-Stein revealed that Burks, who also missed most of camp and the first three games of the season because of a right ankle sprain, will make his debut on Wednesday night.
“[Draymond Green] already said it, it’s going to take a few games for us to jell,” Cauley-Stein said. “Especially now that me and Alec [Burks], this is our first game to get minutes and stuff. For us to really jell, it’s going to take a few games for us to get that pace of how we’re playing. They’re playing extremely fast right now watching, so it’s like a lot of fast-paced learning.”