Kevon Looney’s big Game 5 puts him in exclusive club with Wilt Chamberlain, Nate Thurmond

SACRAMENTO — Kevon Looney, Wilt Chamberlain and Nate Thurmond are the only three Warriors to accomplish one feat.

Looney’s 22 rebounds not only helped lock in the Warriors’ pivotal Game 5 win against the Sacramento Kings on Wednesday night, but lobbed him into an exclusive club with the two Hall of Famers as the only Warriors in history to have multiple 20-plus rebound games in a single playoff series. Chamberlain did it seven times and Thurmond five times.

Looney has done it once. Now, with a 20-rebound Game 3 — without Draymond Green — and Wednesday’s game.

The Warriors’ big paused at his cramped locker at Golden1 Center to grin when he heard the stat.

“Wow,” he said. “Now that’s something I’ll tell my grandkids about.”

Looney’s Warriors career hasn’t been defined by individual numbers. His first NBA years were curtailed by hip surgeries, painstaking rehab and seasons spent collecting dust at the end of the bench. When healthy, he became cult Warriors fandom hero — a quasi-big holding fort for a small-ball oriented team during the Kevin Durant era. He’s a big who has consistently outlasted the centers this organization has tried often to replace him with — James Wiseman, Jordan Bell, to name a few.

Now he’s a cog that keeps this aging dynasty chugging with a few individual numbers he can have framed for the mantle. Head coach Steve Kerr has called him the “moral compass” of the team. Draymond Green calls him a stabilizing force — the veteran who can neutralize the Warriors’ big runs and sloppy play with his own brand of consistency.

“Kevon has become like an Andre Iguodala, Shaun Livingston. A calming force. When we were a lot younger in this run, we had those guys — Shaun, Andre, the list goes on — those two guys in particular that, no matter what was going on,” Green said. “I started turning the ball over. Steph goes haywire, Klay (Thompson) goes haywire. They would come in and calm us down. Kevon is that for this team. He’s that stabilizing force that allows everyone else to focus on what they need to focus on.”

Seven of Looney’s 22 rebounds on Wednesday were offensive boards that helped fuel the Warriors’ 18 second-chance points.Looney had the box-out edge on Kings center Domantas Sabonis down the stretch that helped the Warriors keep a slight second-half edge.

Fck it. Kevon Looney rebounding highlights pic.twitter.com/zixFy5vlbt

— KNBR (@KNBR) April 27, 2023

The Warriors don’t win three straight after starting down 2-0 against the Kings without Looney out-playing Sabonis. He has 72 total rebounds to Sabonis’ 58.

“With this matchup, with Domas (Sabonis) being a key piece, I don’t care what Looney says, he’s playing with a chip on his shoulder,” Donte DiVincenzo said.

Sabonis came into the series the prized center, earning third-team All NBA not only for the way he facilitates the Kings’ high-speed offense, but his domination under the rim. He averaged a double-double this season with 19 points and 12 rebounds per game. Sacramento was supposed to have that Sabonis edge.

Forgotten outside of the Warriors’ locker room was Looney’s playoff history. He gets rebounds when his team’s season depends on it.

Around this time last year, Steph Curry and Draymond Green hand picked Looney to start in Jonathan Kuminga’s place for Game 6 of the Western Conference semifinals. Up 3-2 against the feisty Memphis Grizzlies, the Warriors’ veterans knew he’d be their best option to combat center Steven Adams, who’d been owning them on the glass.

Looney responded with a 22-rebound game as the Warriors clinched a Conference Finals spot.

“The expectation of how he impacts games at this stage of the playoffs and how important that skillset is, I don’t know how he does it,” Curry said. “It’s a relentless effort but a knack for knowing where to be and the attitude that every ball that comes off the rim is his.”

Now Looney and Co. get to play Game 6 with their first lead in the series and a chance to clinch a second-round spot. They’ll get to do at Chase Center, too, under the Chamberlain and Thurmond jerseys that hang in the rafters.

“For him to join any list with those two guys on there speaks to how special of a player he is,” Curry said.