Mike Bryan was one of the winners for our Dorell Wright Kick Back Contest, check out his recap of the event:

Tuesday June 8th a middle aged dad from Rohnert Park got a chance to hang with one of the Golden State Warriors.  The setting was a warm summer day at the Lake Chellet restaurant on edge of Oakland’s Lake Merrit.   The occasion was WarriorsWorld.net’s first Summer Kickback and I was one of five lucky contest winners.   The player was Dorell Wright, a guy who fits his Twitter name, @DWrightway1.  Self proclaimed or not, Dorell Wright knows the “right way” on the court and off.

Warrior fans are known to be the most loyal, basketball loving maniacs in the country and the group of us there was a diverse as the beautiful Bay Area.   We arrived around 5pm, relaxing on the Chalet’s large water front deck.  Without fanfare, up walked Dorell extending handshakes and introducing himself and then settling in of the large lounge chairs.  And then we all started chatting.  We covered a lot of ground from movies to Dorell’s off court exploits (bocce ball with John Madden or throwing out the first pitch at a recent A’s game).  And we did talk basketball.  First question, “What do you think of Mark Jackson?”.   Now this was about 12 hours after the announcement of the Warriors next head coach and Dorell had no hesitation, “Love him, he’s going to be great, especially for Steph and Monta”.  And about Mike Malone (new assistant), “He’s really good”.   Next, the NBA finals:  “Dallas will win tonight (they did), Miami in seven”.   Dorell talked about his time in Miami and his obvious loyalty to his former teammate, Dwayne Wade, but with no regrets about his past year and success with the Warriors.  Wright had his best year as a pro and participated in the Allstar 3 point competition and set a franchise record for the most 3’s in a season, replacing Jason Richardson in the record books.  Dorell is a humble, soft spoken guy.  Seven years in the NBA and the father of a three year old, he has his feet firmly on the ground when he’s not finishing ally-oops from a half court pass.   We wrapped up the 90 minutes with a few autographs and photographs.  He thanked us and headed back to his home in Walnut Creek.

The funny thing about being a fan is we watch these elite athletes on TV or along with 20,000 at Oracle Arena but always far removed.  The players seem larger than life.  Truth be told that players are just people an often times people who wouldn’t give anyone the time of day.   All Warrior fans know Dorell Wright as the complete basketball player and a lucky few know him as a really good guy who treats the fans the Wright way.

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