Legendary Nuggets villain will get jersey retired by rival team

Very few basketball players have ticked off Coloradans the way Andre Iguodala did and the recently retired wing is getting his jersey retired by the team he left the Centennial State for all of his antics and accolades.

The Golden State Warriors announced on Tuesday they will retire Iguodala’s No. 9 jersey on Feb. 23 when the team hosts the Dallas Mavericks. Iguodala left the Denver Nuggets after one season to join the Warriors where he won four championships with Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. The 6-foot-6 wing won Finals MVP in 2015 for slowing LeBron James down while averaging 16.3 points, 5.8 rebounds and 4.0 assists in the series. He is one of just 11 players in league history to win four titles and be named a Finals MVP and now will be the seventh Warrior to get his number in the rafters after eight seasons with the franchise. Though Iguodala’s measly 6.9 points per contest during his tenure that wrapped up two seasons ago is nowhere near as eye-popping as greats like ilt Chamberlain, Chris Mullin or Rick Barry, his impact was no doubt legendary.

And his time with the Warriors all started back in Denver.

One of the leaders of the post-Carmelo Anthony star-less Nuggets, Iggy was a key part of the 57-game winners, which was at the time the franchise’s best NBA season. The West’s No. 3 seed rolled into the playoffs as heavy favorites against the young Warriors but was stomped by Curry’s crew. In part, the six-game series loss was due to scorer Danilo Gallinari getting hurt before the playoffs but it’s maybe because Iguodala was a mole—or at least that’s what head coach George Karl said after he was fired that offseason after just winning the NBA’s Coach of the Year Award.

Iguodala declined his option and then rejected a five-year contract offer from the Nuggets to join the Warriors that summer on a four-year deal.

“No question,” Karl said when asked if Iguodala was Warriors coach Mark Jackson’s ‘mole’ during the playoffs.

Karl joked on Iguodala’s 40th birthday last year that he was impressed he lived so long since moles normally don’t make it more than several years.

Iguodala denies he was a mole, saying he just disagreed with Karl’s playcalls. But he did admit he talked with Jackson during the series saying he wasn’t trying to hurt the Warriors players despite the coach claiming that’s what the Nuggets did.

After one of the games Jackson said, “I got inside information that some people don’t like that brand of basketball and they clearly didn’t co-sign it. They wanted to let me know they have no parts in what was taking place. Let the best team win. And let everybody, with the exception of going down with a freak injury, let everybody leave out of here healthy. That’s not good basketball.”

Jackson’s quote leads many to believe that Karl’s theory was true. Even more, a report from the San Francisco Chronicle’s Rusty Simmons quoted Warriors owner Joe Lacob, who said that Iguodala’s cousin sat near Lacob during that series and made it known Iguodala wanted to be on the Warriors.

“Yeah. I don’t know what the real story is, but there were things there that we saw in film. There was something with Mark Jackson and him that was fishy. Had a bad odor to it. It was negative energy,” Karl said in 2020. “The team gradually figured it out that Iggy was kind of favoring Golden State’s Jackson. His comments were a little bit irregular. But Iggy played well in that series. He played very well for us.”

The 19-year NBA player joined Denver before the 2012-13 season as part of a four-team mega-trade that sent Dwight Howard to the Lakers. He had been an All-Star the previous year on the 76ers and was one of the best defenders in the league all eight of his seasons in Philly. Against the Warriors for the Nuggets, Iguodala averaged 18 points, eight rebounds, five assists and two steals per game in that six-game series before joining the Warriors where his career hit a new level. Maybe everything is different if Gallo stays healthy and Iggy has a happier ending in Denver—instead, he’s a snake, mole and villain to most in the Mile High City—with a few notable exceptions.