- 2 days ago
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00:00There's been so much focus on Draymond Green, and I totally get it.
00:05But maybe an oversimplification to just do what so many of us are doing.
00:11They're good when he doesn't play, and they suck when he does.
00:15I can't believe that it's that simple.
00:18But the Warriors, there's no two ways about it, have arrived in a pickle.
00:23They have absolutely arrived in a pickle.
00:25Because there is something to that point.
00:29And I do believe, at least my eyes, based on what we're seeing right now,
00:33what I watched last night, and it gets tough because you're like,
00:36well, they're playing Memphis, and Memphis is just, they're tanking,
00:38and they don't have any good players.
00:40But the funny thing is, and I think this is fair,
00:43when you go, hey, Memphis is tanking, and they don't have any of their players,
00:47can't I go, right, neither do the Warriors.
00:52Neither do the Warriors.
00:53So why do the Warriors automatically, on their floor, win by 20?
00:58How do they do that?
01:00Well, I would argue that when you put that particular group on the floor,
01:07all of them, obviously, they're young, so they play hard,
01:10they all want more minutes,
01:11and all of them can play 2026 NBA basketball.
01:16I'm probably with a lot of you.
01:18I wish that this wasn't NBA basketball.
01:21I wish that 42% of all shots weren't threes.
01:24Last night, 50% of the Warriors' shots were threes.
01:28Yeah.
01:2950%.
01:30And almost 50% of their shots were threes.
01:32Exactly.
01:33But they made 19 of them, and they won going away.
01:37So the problem is, it's sort of like the shift in baseball.
01:41It works.
01:42So what are you going to do about it?
01:44And what's Draymond Green going to do about it?
01:47And what are the Warriors going to be doing about it?
01:49I don't think it's just that his skills have eroded.
01:52I think it's that his skills aren't as welcomed in the NBA anymore.
01:56Exactly.
01:57And that's a great way to put it.
01:58And what are they going to do about it?
02:00Well, they're going to play him as much as they can,
02:02because on the other end, he still is very good.
02:06He's not as good as he once was, but he's still good enough to where,
02:09yeah, you've got Jokic coming to town.
02:11You want Draymond.
02:12You've got Wemby.
02:13Maybe you've got whoever else you want to put him up against,
02:16because right now, defensively, you don't have a lot.
02:19And you put up a Bucs 33 last night, and you won by 21.
02:23But defensively, you're not a very good team when you don't have Draymond Green.
02:27So it's not as easy as, you know, football, where Fred Warner,
02:31he doesn't play offense, and Diomedo Lenore doesn't, and, you know, Nick Bosa.
02:35They're one-way guys.
02:36In basketball, you have to be two-way.
02:38And so, yeah, has the game passed him by?
02:40Yeah, the game's passed a lot of people by, but he's under contract,
02:44and he's still a very good defender.
02:47So you have to kind of find that way to thread the needle and play him in spots.
02:53And I do think that the Steph Curry part of it,
02:55and Steve Kerr said that to us last time he came on,
02:58like Draymond and Steph together, that's going to be the thing.
03:01So if Steph plays 32 minutes and Draymond plays 25,
03:05his 25 will be part of his 32.
03:08Right, right.
03:09In the meantime, just chill.
03:12Just chill.
03:13Because you're in the play-in, right?
03:16Right.
03:16You're not going to be 11.
03:18You might be 7.
03:19I doubt you'll be the 6 seed.
03:21Right.
03:21Just chill.
03:22I'm with you, but here's the problem that I hear from all of us.
03:27And I don't know exactly, I'm not suggesting anybody do it differently.
03:31But we all have these takes right now,
03:33and none of them, none of them allow for the sensitivity of this subject.
03:38And I don't think you can just ignore that.
03:41We can, because we're just sitting out here with like a beer and nachos and remote controls.
03:46So it doesn't matter.
03:47But, like, again, put yourself in the role of the Golden State Warriors front office.
03:53You're not just going to be like, yeah, thanks, Draymond.
03:57Go sit down.
03:58We don't need you anymore.
04:00Like, you're, you, ugh, that's hard.
04:04That's hard.
04:05And let's not act like it's not a thing.
04:08And don't do the big boy pants stuff and all of this.
04:11This led to the departure of Klay Thompson.
04:13This exact same thing.
04:15Well, that was money.
04:16It wasn't just money.
04:18But he wanted his money.
04:19I know.
04:19If you would have given him $40 million, he would have stayed.
04:21They offered him more than what Klay ended up taking.
04:24Because he thought he was going to get more.
04:25And some people think, at least report, that the Lakers offered him more.
04:30Like, Klay, like every player, like every person, we say what it's about.
04:36Oh, I'm working my way back from injury, and it's tough, and sure, there's the money thing.
04:41It's about respect.
04:44It just is.
04:45And it triggers the hell out of people when they believe that they've earned it and they don't get it.
04:51And this is going to be really hard.
04:54So, I'd love to, like, I'd love to have that conversation if we can.
04:59Like, what do you actually do about this?
05:02But don't, my suggestion, don't just call in.
05:07I mean, you tell him this is what he can do with his ego.
05:11It's just not, it's not real life.
05:13If, I mean, if we're going to sit here on one hand and be like, there'll be a statue of
05:18him one day.
05:18And in the next hand, be like, you point at him in the face and you tell him he can
05:21go sit in the locker room and stay there.
05:23Like, that's not how it's going to go.
05:25So, what do you do?
05:26This is very, very sensitive.
05:29But I don't think it's just about his skills or his back.
05:33I don't know if his style works at all when Steph Curry's not on the floor.
05:39And it only works sometimes when Steph is on the floor.
05:44They run away from him when he's got the ball at the three-point line.
05:47Right.
05:48They run to the bathroom.
05:50You can't, that clogs everything, it screws everything up for everybody.
05:54And I think they've already told him, maybe without telling us that they've told him, but they've showed him that,
06:00look, I mean, you're not going to play as much as you used to.
06:03You're not going to finish as often as you used to, which was every game.
06:07Now it's going to be kind of on a game-to-game basis.
06:10And you've seen from his game that he understands, he's maybe the smartest player I've ever seen as far as,
06:16like, understanding basketball.
06:18And what has he done more this year than ever before?
06:20Shoot the three.
06:21He's trying to become one of the people that thrives in this game because that's all we do now.
06:27We drive, we kick, either we dunk or we kick.
06:30And if we kick, it's for a three.
06:32So, he shoots more threes now than ever before.
06:35And he's actually not having a bad year from three based on his own career.
06:40It's not hellacious.
06:42But again.
06:43This year he's 32% for his career?
06:4632%.
06:46Right.
06:47So.
06:47And that is a number in the NBA that makes teams look at you and go, go ahead.
06:52Sure.
06:52Shoot it.
06:53Fire away.
06:54And if you make it, good for you.
06:55Right.
06:56I mean, based on the math, if he shoots three and he makes one of three, that's three points.
07:01And the other two possessions, you're going to miss.
07:04We're going to go ahead and guess that we get one of those rebounds.
07:08Maybe you get one of them and you get whatever you get.
07:10But if you go one for three, that means three possessions.
07:14You've got three points.
07:15Well, and don't forget, he's not taking the same three-pointer that other players are taking.
07:20Because what you're watching last night is that ball swing, swing, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
07:26Until you get to somebody that's at least open-ish, but you've also got someone running at you.
07:33And if you're Steph or someone who's an elite player, you might even be doing it in a contested way.
07:39Draymond is doing these while he's, I mean, he could be meditating for all the defense cares.
07:45He is on a park bench by himself.
07:48So those are warm-up threes.
07:50And he makes 32%.
07:52That's a number that the defense is willing to play with.
07:56And so, and by the way, I don't think any amount of him practicing and getting better, he could bump
08:03that thing up to 33 or 34.
08:04They're still just going to be looking at him.
08:07And so that's the bottom line.
08:09If you're going to take warm-up threes in this league, you've got to be damn near 40% or
08:14else they're not going to care.
08:16And it just clogs the whole thing up for everyone.
08:20It takes two pointers completely out of play.
08:22You can't drive and kick because you're not driving on anyone.
08:25They're already sitting in the paint.
08:28So that's, like, I just started thinking about this last night.
08:32I'm like, this isn't really on Draymond getting older.
08:37This is just on his style aging out much more than his body.
08:42Yeah.
08:42Yeah.
08:43And that's a fair way to put it.
08:44I mean, he's shooting more threes than ever.
08:46Assists are down.
08:47Turnovers are up.
08:48So even if he's not just shooting threes, like the things that he always has done so well, which is,
08:53you know, facilitate and, you know, protect the ball, those things are also not going very well.
08:59He's shooting more threes.
09:00He's not making more.
09:01So when he's out there on offense, he's more of a net negative.
09:04And defensively, he's taking a step back, maybe two steps back as anybody, you know, normally would in that spot.
09:12So the real conundrum, though, is, all right, it's real what you're talking about.
09:16And you've got the rest of this year and one more year.
09:19How do you navigate not only like Draymond and his quote unquote feelings, but the contract and the future and
09:26all the rest of it?
09:27All of it.
09:27Let's take one.
09:28We'd love to hear from you.
09:29888-957-9570.
09:32Mike in Fremont.
09:33Hi, Mike.
09:33You're on Willard and Dibbs.
09:34What's up?
09:36Gentlemen, happy Thursday.
09:38I just wanted to win.
09:40I think Draymond's looking around and going, looking at the way he came into the league and the way he
09:46got his time was because David Lee got hurt and then he took over his starting spot and he never
09:52let go.
09:53And so until somebody comes in and takes his spot, he's not going to let go.
09:59And it doesn't matter how bad he shoots.
10:01It doesn't matter if he lost the step.
10:03If nobody on this team and there's not really anybody else on this team who's stepping up to take his
10:08place, then what's he going to do?
10:11He's going to say, I'm going to keep doing what I've done for the last 12, 14 years.
10:16And until somebody takes it from me, it's mine.
10:19So, and I think he's also the type who would respect that.
10:23You use the type of player that you're better than me.
10:26I'm going to give you your props.
10:28But until you come and take it from me, it's mine.
10:30Well, that's it, Mike.
10:32I think you're spot on.
10:34But it also comes down, well, who are we talking about?
10:37And here's what I mean by that.
10:39Are we talking about Draymond the five or Draymond the four?
10:43And Al Horford doesn't play on back-to-backs.
10:46But if you make the playoffs, you don't need to worry about that anymore.
10:50Al is now playing at a really high level.
10:51Like, Al should take the five.
10:54And Porzingis is not healthy enough to actually play.
10:58There's the thing that's holding, like, that's sitting on everyone's shoulder.
11:02What about Kristaps Porzingis?
11:03And then when you get to the four, four doesn't mean what it used to mean.
11:08Like, a lot of people can sort of moonlight at the four.
11:11I don't know.
11:11Is what Guy Santos is doing, is that interesting enough to sort of, like,
11:15make you start thinking about the four, Draymond the four?
11:19I know he's still a little loose with his game, but he's certainly,
11:24and he's not on defense what Draymond is on defense, but he's interesting on offense.
11:28No doubt.
11:29And Draymond's always interesting because on offense, he's kind of more of your one.
11:34And on defense, he's either your one, two, three, four, five.
11:38So, I mean, Draymond is a little bit of a Swiss Army knife at his best.
11:42And so right now, if you can't be the one because, you know,
11:46your turnovers are up and your assists are down and Steph's not playing,
11:49then that's why you get to a spot where you don't really finish with him.
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