Warriors' kindred basketball spirits Iguodala, Livingston go way back

From high school rivals to Finals teammates, Golden State super subs are still pushing each other.

OAKLAND -- Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston first played against each other at a Gus Macker tournament in Champaign, Ill. Iguodala was 12. Livingston was 10.

High school rivals, blue-chip recruits, and then ships passing in the night as their NBA careers unfolded. Now, for the second straight year, they're teammates in the NBA Finals -- and their contributions are among the most significant reasons that the Golden State Warriors hold a 1-0 advantage over the Cleveland Cavaliers heading into Game 2 on Sunday.

"It's pretty amazing, especially where we come from," Iguodala said Friday. "There's a lot of talent and there's a lot of great ballplayers and a lot of guys who could be in our situation but could never get out. They got stuck kind of in that trap of where we're from. To be the two guys who actually made it out, although there were a few that were better than us or had equal opportunities, it's a blessing."

Iguodala hails from Springfield, Ill., and led Springfield Lanphier to the 2002 IHSA Class AA state championship game, where he was defeated by Westinghouse. Livingston, two years his junior, had been the phenom growing up in Peoria, but it became obvious by the time both were in high school that they were destined for the NBA.

"These are our hoop dreams," Livingston told CBS Sports. "We both feel it. We're both from the same place. We grew up with guys and it was all our dreams to play in the NBA. And we happened to be the two kids who came out and had a chance to make it and made it. To be here, it's like we're representing our respective cities, our respective groups of people and old teammates that we played with, people that follow us, people that grinded with us when we were younger."

Both are still grinding away, at the highest level of basketball competition in the world -- and making an enormous impact for the defending champion Warriors in the Finals.

Iguodala's defense on Kevin Durant in the Western Conference finals helped the Warriors climb out of a 3-1 hole and advance to the Finals, where he hounded LeBron James all night in Game 1. Livingston, who has come all the way back from a gruesome knee injury that doctors believe should have ended his career, if not his ability to walk altogether, in 2007, scored 20 points in 26 minutes off the bench Thursday night, sparking a 45-10 bench scoring advantage that helped the Warriors overcome an off night from their superstar backcourt of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.

"In terms of where they both started and how they got to this point, it's kind of nice to see guys that have put in that much effort and hard work and adversity at this moment right now in the NBA Finals," teammate Harrison Barnes said. "And they're both playing well alongside each other."

When Livingston was a sophomore at Peoria Central, with silky smooth moves and a splendid Afro, his team beat Iguodala's Lanphier when Iguodala was a senior.

"I don't always bring it up," Livingston said, and I half expected him to channel the Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World" line, but he didn't. "But I hold that as bragging rights."

Livingston -- who before his knee injury was seen as a true phenom with otherworldly athleticism and Magic-Johnson-like size at the point guard position -- came straight out of high school and was drafted fourth overall by the Los Angeles Clippers in 2004. Iguodala, who'd played two years at Arizona as Livingston was finishing up high school, went ninth in the same draft to Philadelphia, where he played the first eight years of his career.

Iguodala struggled at times with the pressure and expectations of being a leading man and lottery pick, though he burnished a reputation as one of the league's elite defenders. He also became an Olympic gold medalist in 2012 with Team USA.

He was dealt to Denver in 2012 in a four-team trade that landed Dwight Howard with the Lakers and sent ripple effects from coast to coast in the NBA. After his Nuggets were upset in the 2013 first round by the upstart Golden State Warriors, Iguodala faced free agency -- and urged his agent, Rob Pelinka, to somehow find a way to get him to Oakland.

It was one of Warriors GM Bob Myers' most critical moves as he built what would become a championship team around the exquisite, game-changing talents of Curry and Thompson. And as Myers tells the story now, the deal came perilously close to not happening at all.

"Midnight calls went on for eight or nine days, hours and hours and hours," Myers told CBS Sports Radio in an interview airing Saturday on "Eye on Basketball" (6-8 p.m. ET). "And I remember telling my wife numerous times: I'd walk in the house and say, 'You know what sucks is, this is one of the hardest things I've tried to do and it's not going to happen. ... I thought for the entire duration that we were trying to get that done that it was not going to happen.'"

Iguodala and his agent, Pelinka, agreed to wait out free agency until the Warriors finished exploring all options for dumping the necessary contracts to clear from for Iguodala. Eventually, they set a deadline, and the Utah Jazz came through -- agreeing to take on the contracts of Andris Biedrins, Richard Jefferson and Brandon Rush to facilitate the deal.

"I credit Andre more with having that vision than us, even," Myers said. "... To be honest, he's maybe a better GM than me."

Deconstruct that deal and imagine the fallout if it hadn't happened. If Steve Kerr didn't have Iguodala to insert into the starting lineup in Game 4 of the Finals against Cleveland last year -- the tactical move that turned the series in the Warriors' favor -- does Golden State win 73 games and stand three wins away from a second straight title?

If Myers hadn't lured Livingston from the Nets as a free agent in 2014, who would've sparked the fourth-quarter run that put Game 1 of this year's Finals out of reach?

So many what-ifs surrounding two guys who played against each other as teenagers and now roll together with a defending champion that's on the brink of making NBA history. There isn't another team in the league that has a pair of veterans like Iguodala and Livingston coming off the bench. They could both easily be starting elsewhere. But at this point in their respective careers, they find themselves in the perfect spot to make the kind of impact they both started dreaming about way back when they first stepped on the same court as opponents.

"Even from a young age," Iguodala said, "it was always about bringing the best out of each other and having fun."

To this day, that remains as true as ever.

Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston go way back. USATSI