SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — When Andre Iguodala signed with the Golden Warriors in 2013, there was no guarantee that he'd be part of a dynasty. Stephen Curry was not yet an All-Star, and Klay Thompson and Draymond Green were just starting their careers.
As it turned out, Iguodala’s sacrifices and foresight contributed to four championships, highlighted by an NBA Finals MVP win in 2015, when he led the Warriors to their first title in four decades.
On Sunday, they honored Iguodala by retiring his No. 9 and raising his jersey to the rafters at Chase Center.
“It’s been a wild journey, but it’s been a beautiful blessing,” Iguodala said in his speech.
Iguodala became the seventh player to have his number retired by the franchise. He joined Rick Barry (24), Wilt Chamberlain (13), Nate Thurmond (42), Al Attles (16), Chris Mullin (17) and Tom Meschery (14).
Iguodala already had an accomplished career before joining the Warriors. He had established himself as a defensive stalwart and everyday starter over nine seasons. In Golden State, he assumed the role of providing veteran leadership, recognizing the talent he had around him.
“You sacrificed ego for excellence,” Curry said during Sunday's ceremony.
Curry said Iguodala unlocked confidence, intelligence and maturity for an up-and-coming team, adding that he went from being the face of the franchise with the Philadelphia 76ers to the “glue” with the Warriors that “made it all work.”
“He wanted to join what was happening, because he saw how special it was,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said before Sunday's 126-102 win over the Dallas Mavericks. “That was a coup. I mean, the Warriors weren’t exactly getting a lot of free agents. So to sign Andre was obviously one of the key moves to this whole thing.”
Iguodala was 30 in his first season with the Warriors and had never come off the bench in 10 seasons. When Kerr took over the team the following year, Iguodala agreed to take a bench role. He called it a “great, unique situation” and said that Curry, Thompson and Green made it easy on him.
“It’s rare in professional sports to see a guy that’s kind of still in his prime kind of take a back seat, or actually willingly move out the way for the up-and-coming guys,” The 41-year-old Iguodala said before the game.
That resulted in a championship run in 2015, with Iguodala becoming the first player to win NBA Finals MVP after not starting every game in the series. It was Kerr who trusted Iguodala to perform on the big stage and moved him into the starting lineup trailing 2-1 to the Cavaliers in the 2015 Finals and gave him the assignment of guarding then-Cleveland star LeBron James.
He averaged 16.3 points, 4.0 assists and 5.8 rebounds as the Warriors beat the Cavaliers in six games.
“That was the ultimate validation of everything I’ve always believed in the game, and I do think other people recognize that,” Kerr said. “It wasn’t lost on anyone, the sacrifice and the success and everything that kind of happened together.”
Iguodala was the No. 9 pick in the 2004 NBA draft out of Arizona and played in 1,231 career games. He spent eight seasons with the Philadelphia 76ers, one in Denver, six with the Warriors, two in Miami and returned to Golden State for his last two seasons. He was part of NBA championships in 2015, ’17, ’18 and 2022.
Iguodala said the Warriors' core had a drive to keep going, especially after winning the first championship.
“When we won the first one, it was almost like we had to do it again to prove that it wasn’t a fluke,” Iguodala said. “And then, once you win the second one, you’re like, ’Alright, we’ve got to do it again because nobody can touch us. And we’ve got to do it again because we’re supposed to do it again.'”
He added: “That’s just the unique characteristics of great athletes, the ones who are never satisfied. That was in the DNA of every individual, and it just bred into the fabric of the organization.”
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Former basketball player Andre Iguodala, right, talks to reporters before an NBA basketball game between the Golden State Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks, Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
Former basketball player Andre Iguodala, right, talks to reporters before an NBA basketball game between the Golden State Warriors and the Dallas Mavericks, Sunday, Feb. 23, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez)
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Israel struck a key petrochemical plant at Iran’s massive South Pars natural gas field and killed two paramilitary Revolutionary Guard commanders on Monday, potentially challenging a new 45-day ceasefire proposal for Tehran and the United States as President Donald Trump's ultimatum looms within hours.
The gas field attack was aimed at eliminating a major source of revenue for Iran, Israel said. The field is critical to Iran’s electricity production, but the strike appeared to be separate from Trump’s threats to target power plants and bridges if Tehran doesn't reopen the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping traffic.
Iran’s grip on the strait has caused oil prices to surge and shaken the world economy.
Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz described “a powerful strike on the largest petrochemical facility in Iran." The gas field shared with Qatar is the world’s largest and sits under the Persian Gulf. Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency and the judicary’s Mizan news agency reported the attack and blamed the U.S. and Israel.
The White House did not immediately comment, though Trump was set to speak to journalists at the White House Monday afternoon. After Israel’s attack on the field in March, Trump said Israel would not attack it again but warned that if Iran continued striking Qatar’s energy infrastructure, the United States would “massively blow up" the field.
Trump’s deadline for Tehran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz is set for Monday night Washington time.
Egyptian, Pakistani and Turkish mediators have sent Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi and U.S. Mideast envoy Steve Witkoff a proposal calling for a 45-day ceasefire and the reopening of the strait, two Mideast officials told The Associated Press. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the private negotiations.
Iran’s foreign ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei told journalists in Tehran that messages are being exchanged with mediators but “negotiations are entirely incompatible with ultimatums, crimes, and threats of war crimes.”
Iranian officials have blasted Trump's weekend threats against infrastructure as incitement to war crimes.
In Islamabad, two senior officials said Pakistan’s efforts for a ceasefire are at an advanced stage but “several spoilers and detractors” are trying to sow confusion through disinformation. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the talks.
Meanwhile, explosions boomed in Tehran and low-flying jets could be heard for hours.
Among those killed was the head of intelligence for Iran’s paramilitary Revolutionary Guard, Maj. Gen. Majid Khademi, according to Iranian state media and Israel’s defense minister.
Israel’s military said it also killed the leader of the Revolutionary Guard’s undercover unit in its expeditionary Quds Force, Asghar Bakeri.
Israel’s defense minister vowed to keep targeting top-ranking officials. “Iran’s leaders live with a sense of being targeted,” Katz said. “We will continue to hunt them down one by one.”
Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia activated air defenses to intercept Iranian missiles and drones as Tehran kept up pressure on Gulf neighbors, which has included strikes against infrastructure like oil fields. In Israel, Iranian missiles hit the northern city of Haifa, where four people from one family were found dead in the rubble of a residential building.
Iran’s attacks on regional energy infrastructure and its hold on the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil is shipped in peacetime, have sent global energy prices soaring.
Brent crude oil, the international standard, rose to $109 in Monday spot trading, about 50% higher than when the war started.
Under pressure at home as consumers worry, Trump has warned Iran that if no deal is reached to reopen the strait, the U.S. would hit power plants and other infrastructure and set the country “back to the stone ages.”
“Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one,” he threatened Sunday.
Trump has given multiple deadlines to Iran, and has posted: “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!” though it was not clear whether he had extended his deadline.
Former Iranian foreign minister Ali Akbar Velayatir urged Arab countries to discourage Trump from striking power plants, warning on social media that the entire region would go “dark” if that happens.
Following Trump’s expletive-laced post Sunday, Iran’s parliamentary Speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf called threats of targeting Iran’s infrastructure “reckless.”
Iran has let some vessels through the strait since the war began with U.S. and Israeli attacks on Feb. 28, but none belong to those countries or ones perceived as helping them. Some have paid Iran for passage but the flow of traffic is down more than 90% over the same period last year.
Thick smoke rose near Tehran’s Azadi Square after an airstrike hit the grounds of the Sharif University of Technology. Multiple countries have sanctioned the university for its work with the military, particularly on Iran’s ballistic missile program.
Araghchi called university “the MIT of Iran,” posting on social media that “Aggressors will see our might.”
Iranian media reported damage to buildings and a natural gas distribution site next to campus. The university is empty as the war has forced all schools into online classes.
A strike near Eslamshar, southwest of Tehran, killed at least 15 people, authorities said. Five were killed in a residential area in Qom, and six were killed in strikes on other cities, the state-run IRAN daily newspaper reported. Three people were killed at a home in Tehran, state television reported.
In Lebanon, where Israel has launched air attacks and a ground invasion that it says target the Iran-linked Hezbollah militia, an airstrike hit an apartment in Ain Saadeh town east of Beirut. It killed an official in the Lebanese Forces, a Christian political party strongly opposed to Hezbollah, his wife and another woman.
More than 1,900 people have been killed in Iran since the war began, but the government has not updated the toll for days.
More than 1,400 people have been killed in Lebanon and more than 1 million people have been displaced. Eleven Israeli soldiers have died there.
In Gulf Arab states and the occupied West Bank, more than two dozen people have died, while 23 have been reported dead in Israel and 13 U.S. service members have been killed.
Rising reported from Bangkok and Magdy from Cairo. Munir Ahmed in Islamabad and Isabel DeBre in Ain Saadeh, Lebanon, contributed to this story.
Nadine Naameh reacts as she looks at the damage to her home following an Israeli strike in the village of Ain Saadeh in the mountains east of Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
A man works at the site of Sunday's Israeli strike on a building in Beirut's Jnah neighborhood, Lebanon, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Emilio Morenatti)
Rescue workers and military personnel carry a body of a victim from the rubble of a residential building a day after it was struck by an Iranian missile in Haifa, Israel, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
Pedestrians look at a destroyed building within the Grand Hosseiniyeh, with the mosque visible in the background, which officials at the site say was hit by U.S.-Israeli airstrikes Tuesday, in Zanjan, Iran, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
A man sits beside an Iranian flag banner during a government-sponsored protest attended by medical workers against the U.S.-Israeli military campaign outside Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Medical workers attend a government-sponsored protest against the U.S.-Israeli military campaign outside Imam Khomeini Hospital in Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Workers remove debris at Tehran's Sharif University of Technology complex that Iranian authorities say was hit early Monday by a U.S.-Israeli strike, in Tehran, Iran, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Israeli rescue teams search for missing people amid the rubble of a residential building a day after it was struck by an Iranian missile in Haifa, Israel, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
A truck loaded with logs and other vehicles drive along a road toward Tehran near the Turkish border on the outskirts of Razi, northwestern Iran, Saturday, April 4, 2026. (AP Photo/Francisco Seco)
Rescue workers search for victims at the site of an Israeli airstrike that hit a crowded neighbourhood south of Beirut, Lebanon, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
Yemeni soldiers patrol the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, Yemen, Sunday, April 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Abdulnasser Alseddik)
Israeli rescue teams search for missing people amid the rubble of a residential building a day after it was struck by an Iranian missile in Haifa, Israel, Monday, April 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Ariel Schalit)
