Why a re-engaged Draymond is swinging the pendulum of Warriors success originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
SAN FRANCISCO – Cell phone flashlights swing back and forth throughout the Chase Center stands. Draymond Green and his Warriors teammates also have their cellphones out. Green throws his arms up and down at the start of the song and bounces his way over to the scorer’s table to join a dancing Steph Curry.
It is one week from the 2024-25 NBA regular season and the Warriors enjoy their annual tradition of karaoke for the rookies at opening practice, with Quinten Post of the Netherlands belting out Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” When Curry and Green jump down from the scorer’s table, Green dances and sings alongfully immersed in the moment at 34 years old, about to enter his 13th season with the Warriors. He’s so engrossed that Green won’t let Jackson Rowe, following the microphone, get away with just singing one verse of Marvin Gaye’s “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough,” playfully booing Rowe so hard he started all the way. over.
There Green is again on the scorer’s table, alone this time, kicking his legs, dancing and singing every word. The next day, a flap turns on. It’s time for Green and the Warriors.
“He was awesome,” Kerr said the next day after practice. “He’s so locked in. Today, it was our best practice of camp, and a big reason why Draymond basically stepped in and coached in places where guys needed guidance or if he saw something.”
That right there, that balance of Green, is when he is at his best. Committed in every way as a teammate and a person, something that has somewhat transcended the past two tumultuous seasons.
“Draymond, first and foremost, he’s always on his A-game,” Warriors second-year center Trayce Jackson-Davis said. “But this practice, he just went above and beyond. Taught guys, did a lot of things — a. a lot of really, really good things that helped our team. When a guy does that, a lot of us young guys feed off of that.”
Whatever lessons Green taught his teammates, whatever wisdom was imparted to a group of several new additions and young Warriors who will have important roles this season, carried over into the next night. The Warriors, to cap off a perfect 6-0 preseason, destroyed the insufficient Los Angeles Lakers by 58 points.
Green only played 16 minutes and was plus-15 in limited time without taking a single shot. The ball was buzzing and Green was the conductor of this Warrior train that could not be stopped. Green assisted both of their first two made baskets and near the 4:40 mark of the first quarter, he was already up to five assists when the Warriors led by 10 points.
He can be the veteran whose beard is now more salt and pepper than aza black swag, surfing with his teammates for a stretch of the Warriors’ preseason opener in Hawaii, and the one who firmly directs them where to be on the court. The Warriors need him to be both. They have six players in contract yearsfour young players looking to show they can be a part of another championship and four offseason additions who want to prove general manager Mike Dunleavy right in building a deep team made to withstand the ups and downs of an NBA season.
They need everyone by Draymond.
Without him last season due to suspensions of putting Rudy Gobert in a chokehold and going Cobra Kai on Jusuf Nurkic, Green missed 27 games. The Warriors went 13-14 in games Green missed and had a 128.7 defensive rating. With him, the Warriors were 33-22 and had a 118.4 defensive rating.
Their .600 winning percentage when Green was on the floor would have made the Warriors a playoff team as the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference, instead of falling to the play-in tournament as the No. 10 seed.
Green became less involved with the Warriors the past two seasons where his pre-season punch to Jordan Poole put a stain on the season before it even started, followed by physical actions once again getting in his and the Warriors’ way. Curry and Kerr didn’t see, or hear, the same Green they were used to. Brandin Podziemski coming into his second season sees a version of the four-time champion that made him a future Hall of Famer as one of the NBA’s best success stories.
“From the energy that he’s constantly bringing right now, I just feel like there’s a new life to him,” Podziemski says. “He knows it’s a new season. Obviously coming through the suspension last year and missing games, it’s hard to get your mind right after something like that, I think he’s done a great thing over the summer and carried it to now, being there for everyone else.”
Now a father of four, Green knows he can’t erase the past. The punch will always be there. Images of the 7-foot Gobert looking like he’s being put to sleep by Green won’t go away. The internet is forever.
So are Green’s four rings, fueled by his fire, which seems to have been reignited again in all the right ways.
“He’s got a big voice, and he’s the ultimate competitor and winner,” Kerr said. “When we get the best version of Draymond, there’s nobody like him in the league. That’s why we hung banners, that’s why Draymond is here.
“It’s up to us to help him be the best version of himself, and he had a great camp.”
The Warriors continue to orbit around the planet that is Steph Curry. They go as he goes, but no one can swing the pendulum of what the Warriors’ season will be more than Green. He climbed every mountain deemed too high for him. If his all-encompassing preseason release is who he will be on and off the court for an 82-game campaign, the Warriors and Green alike can remind the basketball world to never stop believing.
