Draymond Green knows how to win. He also really, really likes doing so.
Saginaw High School hadn't seen a basketball championship in over ten years when Green entered his junior year there. That season, he averaged 25 points, 13 rebounds, three assists and three steals en route to a 26-1 overall record and the state championship. The following campaign, Green's senior year, saw the first repeat championship run in Saginaw High School's history for the men's basketball program. In his freshman year at Michigan State, the Spartans were sole champions of the Big Ten for the first time since 2000. Fast forward a handful of years, and Green is a three-time NBA champion and a playoff competitor in all seven of his first seven seasons.
Then, 2019-20 happened, with Kevin Durant leaving, Klay Thompson tearing his ACL and Stephen Curry breaking his hand in a relatively short time span. Draymond Green wasn't winning. And when he's not winning, he's not enjoying the game he calls his career. In fact, he didn't even care about it.
"I wasn’t interested in the game," Green revealed to The Ringer's Logan Murdock. "It was just a totally different situation that I was dealing with for the first time in my life on top of the abruptness of it. You couldn’t have told me three months before that I would go from the best team ever to the f***ing worst team in the NBA.
"It was frustrating. And it was also a mind-f***."
Listen to Bay Area sports talk now on Audacy and shop the latest Warriors team gear
It's not like he wasn't trying anymore — though Murdock says that "Green rarely cared on the floor, to the chagrin of many of his coaches" once it became clear the playoffs weren't a reality that season — and he still put up Draymond-esque numbers. The full list of players with at least 8.0 points, 5.0 rebounds and 5.0 assists (min. 1000 minutes) from that season still shows you the star-studded company he was in:
| Crit | Crit | Crit | Crit | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rk | Player | Tm | PTS | AST | TRB | WS |
| 1 | James Harden | HOU | 34.3 | 7.5 | 6.6 | 13.1 |
| 2 | Giannis Antetokounmpo | MIL | 29.5 | 5.6 | 13.6 | 11.1 |
| 3 | LeBron James | LAL | 25.3 | 10.2 | 7.8 | 9.8 |
| 4 | Nikola Jokić | DEN | 19.9 | 7.0 | 9.7 | 9.8 |
| 5 | Jimmy Butler | MIA | 19.9 | 6.0 | 6.7 | 9.0 |
| 6 | Luka Dončić | DAL | 28.8 | 8.8 | 9.4 | 8.8 |
| 7 | Bam Adebayo | MIA | 15.9 | 5.1 | 10.2 | 8.5 |
| 8 | Kyle Lowry | TOR | 19.4 | 7.5 | 5.0 | 7.5 |
| 9 | Domantas Sabonis | IND | 18.5 | 5.0 | 12.4 | 7.5 |
| 10 | DeMar DeRozan | SAS | 22.1 | 5.6 | 5.5 | 7.3 |
| 11 | Ben Simmons | PHI | 16.4 | 8.0 | 7.8 | 6.9 |
| 12 | Russell Westbrook | HOU | 27.2 | 7.0 | 7.9 | 4.2 |
| 13 | Lonzo Ball | NOP | 11.8 | 7.0 | 6.1 | 2.4 |
| 14 | Draymond Green | GSW | 8.0 | 6.2 | 6.2 | 1.1 |
But putting up those numbers for a winning team, as opposed to one that was getting beaten to the Timberwolves, Pistons and Kings in consecutive games — yes, that really happened — makes a world of difference, at least in Green's eyes.
"You’re walking in these arenas and [for] years you’ve been like, ‘We’re going to go win,’ and now you’re walking in and there’s actually no chance we win this game," Green says. "Not only do you know you’re going to get your ass kicked, but the other team knows they’re going to kick your ass and they’re not even taking you seriously."
The 2020-21 season wasn't quite as bad, with the Warriors getting back on the plus side of .500, but it wasn't a good enough campaign to make the playoffs as the Grizzlies took them down in the play-in tournament. This time around, things should look different, with Klay Thompson eventually taking the floor for the first time in two years and young impact players like James Wiseman, Moses Moody and Jonathan Kuminga looking to contribute in various ways early on.
However, FiveThirtyEight isn't as optimistic as some are about their chances, giving them just a 19 percent change to make the playoffs and projecting their record to be 36-46. However, this seemingly may take into account the fact that they project Thompson to be a "scrub" — their words, not mine — based on how his WAR has trended in recent seasons. Other outlets, like ESPN, NBC Sports and Bleacher Report, are more optimistic, with a 48-50 win projection (via FanSided's Blue Man Hoop).
LISTEN on the Audacy App
Sign Up and Follow Audacy Sports
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
