Iguodala reveals what he did when missing Warriors game for rest

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Andre Iguodala's career before the 2019-20 season can be broken down into two distinct phases -- before and after Steve Kerr became coach of the Warriors.

From 2004-05 through 2013-14, Iguodala started all 758 of the games he appeared in and averaged 37.0 minutes per game.

From 2014-15 through 2018-19, he only started 21 times out of 350 regular-season appearances, averaging 25.7 minutes per game.

Kerr and the Warriors' training staff chose to pace the 2012 NBA All-Star throughout the grind of the regular season, and then unleash him in the playoffs.

That plan paid dividends.

But just because a healthy Iguodala didn't take the court on certain nights, it does not mean he simply got to chill. It just meant he had a date with the "fan bike."

"I did that in my off days with the Warriors. If I didn’t play, if I got a night to rest, I just did that. The fan bike's the hardest s--t ever," the 2015 NBA Finals MVP recently told The Athletic's Sam Amick. "That s--t’s the worst.

"We do like hard spurts, where you go like 15 seconds as hard as you can and then 45 seconds off, and do like five or 10 of them or whatever. There’s different levels to it, but you get an eight-minute workout in and it’s like a game workout. Even though it’s only eight minutes.

"Any time I missed a game with the Warriors for load management, that’s what I did."

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That sounds ...

... miserable and not fun.

RELATED: Iguodala explains difference between Warriors, Heat cultures

But clearly it helped keep Iguodala in peak condition so he could be on the court when it mattered most. And he still does the workout as a member of the Miami Heat.

It's going to be a lot of fun watching him face off against LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers in the NBA Finals.

"Andre was our primary defender on him during all those Finals (matchups against the Cleveland Cavaliers)," Golden State coach Steve Kerr told reporters Monday. "Not a whole lot anybody can do.

"But Andre is as good of an option as there is just because of his intelligence and awareness of what needs to happen."

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