Draymond on caring about the organization: “I’m 45, I don’t want to come watch a sorry-ass team play”

[practice interview/video/transcript]

“Damn good Draymond (Green) day at the podium,” Dalton Johnson of NBCSBA tweeted from Warriors practice yesterday. Good news, we were there, too, and were able to get the full video with captions and transcript up on the Interwebs, below.

More content from the last few days coming soon here and a new announcement on the Love Your Dubs Summit, which quite frankly is epitomized by what Green said about him and one Wardell Stephen Curry as it relates to DubNation:

Steph, myself, we care about the organization. We don’t just care about what happens this year for us. Like, good, bad, different, we’re tied to this thing forever. Our name will be on this, so you care what that looks like. (When) I’m 45, I don’t want to come watch a sorry-ass team play. I wanna come and it’s jumping and you get the whole feeling of, like, how it was when we were doing it, right?

This was said in the context of a question from Nick Friedell of The Athletic, whom I caught at the Warriors Open Practice belting out “Wonderwall” by Oasis as Alex Toohey sauntered up the stairs into Section 122 at Chase Center:

Friedell’s question was on Draymond’s reaction to Brandin Podziemski recently telling him (Nick, actually!) in an article last week, “How can I have their trust? And they can go to (owner) Joe (Lacob) and [(general manager) Mike (Dunleavy) and be like, ‘Hey, we want to leave it with him. He’s going to continue what we’re leaving.’”

Paid subscribers will get an additional tidbit on Podziemski below the paywall. 👇 Btw, you get a free paid subscription for one year here in this Substack if you upgrade your ticket with the Love Your Dubs Summit here.

Dray’s response was over four minutes long — see transcript below — but essentially it was, “With him, I say, be careful. Don’t tell people too much because the more you tell people, the more they can use it against you and try to tear you down.”

Reminder, additional Podz tidbit below the paywall…

00:00 DRAYMOND GREEN, PRACTICE, 2 DAYS BEFORE GSW-LAL: What’s up guys?

00:07 What’s up, Draymond.

00:12 How do you feel about where you guys are, just after the preseason, heading into this season opener?

00:16 We’re complete dog shit. Nah, I’m just (joking). I feel pretty good with where we are, you know? Obviously, JK practiced today, Jimmy practiced today. So just have guys healthy going into it’s important. I think they kind of have seen some lineups that we know can work and really mix well together. And we see where we need to improve, which is important. So we feel good about where we are. We’re feeling good about where you, where we are is, part of feeling good about where we are is knowing where we can get, so we’re in a pretty good spot, but I think we’re all excited about the amount of growth we know this team can and will have.

01:18 Steve said that Moses is gonna be out for the regular season opener. Basically, he said that the starters is still kind of TBD for him, but it’s that fifth spot that he is still kind of looking at. It seems like that could change things for you, whether it’s starting at the 4, the 5, how much does that fifth spot matter for you at this point, as someone who’s played in that 4 and 5 so many different times throughout his career?

01:40 If I gotta play the 5, I’ma ask for a trade. I think, I think you said I’ve teetered with it my whole career, sometimes at the 5, sometimes at the 4. I think you all know me. Whatever helps this team, whatever puts us in the best position to win, that’s what I’m gonna do. I train and prepare myself for whatever’s to come. Playing the 5 isn’t always about the size. It’s about the size of the heart and I think my heart is as big, if not big as anyone’s, in this league. So I always trust in that. I think my brain helps get me by quite a bit. I can out-think some guys, so I just use the tools that I have, but I’m not putting no huge emphasis on whether I’m playing the 4 or 5. I think that we, I think in life we all have ideally what we would like. And I have ideally what I think it would look like, but I also know that I play a team sport and in playing a team sport, what may be best for you personally or what you think is best, if that’s not best for the team, then you’re selfish and I take pride in not being selfish. So whatever that looks like, that looks like wherever I can help. If that’s like, “Oh man, you start to the 5, that’s gonna help this lineup, that’s gonna help this rotation, great. If it’s you slide to the 4, great, but ultimately, Steve proved Year One that he knows how to do these things, so I’m not gonna be the idiot to sit there and question. I’ll move on with my life and get ready for whatever ahead.

03:25 One of those, like, probably ideal combinations is probably when you’re out there with Al. When you’re out there with Al, what do you need to do on offense? Where do you need to be to make it work?

03:36 I’m still figuring that out, honestly. I think that’s what it’s about, right? Like, when you say possibilities and see some lineups that can work or, but also where they can go, like, we’re still figuring each other out. We’re still figuring out what’s best. We’re still figuring out who’s playing the trail spot, who’s getting to the corner, who’s getting to the dunker’s lane. Like, we’re still figuring all that stuff. What I will say is I always take it upon myself to be the one to figure it out. Like, I don’t want anyone else to have to figure it out. I don’t want Al trying to figure out, “Man, what space should I be? I’ll rack my brain to figure out where I should be and kind of fill in around everyone else. So that’s a work in progress, but defensively it’s exciting. I think we have a great chemistry defensively where sometimes it can allow me to just roam and I can be really, really, really dangerous when I’m just roaming around, you know? So he cover up a lot of mistakes and then also me adjusting my mindset and all, like, I don’t have to cover up every mistake, right? Because all of a sudden, if you’re me, you’re trying to cover up every mistake and Al’s trying to cover up the mistake. Now you got two people in one spot and that’s gonna put our defense at a disadvantage, you know? And so, selfishly, unselfishly, I have to figure that out. And knowing that you don’t have to cover up everything because Al’s gonna cover that too and kind of fill in where I need to fill in. So it’s a lot of figuring out, but it’s fun. I enjoy it. it’s like a chess match, put the piece that, move a pawn, bishop out like that, it’s kind of a lot like that, so I enjoy it, but, and like I said, what’s exciting about it is I know, once we figure it out, it’s dangerous. And while we’re figuring it out, we still pretty good, so.

05:33 You said you’re still figuring it out, but how much progress do you feel like you’ve made since just the beginning of training camp in terms of learning how to play with him or getting to play with him? Do feel like you’re close to figuring it out or?

05:45 Well, I think, I like to think of myself as a pretty smart basketball player. Al’s smart as hell, you know? So, the appearance from time to time that I say, “Man, that guy is easy to play with.” Al was an easy basketball player to play with, you know? So it’s not like, it’s, like, rocket science, figuring it out, you know? It’s more about comfortability, like, where are you more comfortable? Are you more comfortable on the right side of the left side? Are you more comfortable above the break, in the corner, you know? It’s figuring the nuances out. That’s not necessarily figuring out the overarching thing of what we’re doing. You’re kind of figuring out the little nuances, which, if I’m honest, is not something that Steve can really figure out because that’s y’all figuring out on the court. It’s like a chemistry that you’re figuring out. So I think we’ve made a lot of progress, since the start of training camp, but like I said, it takes time to get to know a teammate and figure out their nuances, figure out where they like the ball, you know? Is it a bounce pass, is it throwing it up in the air, right, like, for certain teammates? And so it’s just figuring out little stuff like that and that stuff. Like I said, it just takes a little time. We haven’t had enough time to quite figure it out, but we’re figuring it out and it won’t take long.

06:57 Draymond, I don’t know whether you saw it or not, but like a week ago Podz came out and was like, I want to earn the trust of everybody so that Stephen, Draymond could go to Joe, Mike and say, “Hey, we can leave it with him down the line.” Do you like when a young player speaks openly like that and has that type of outward confidence to feel that way about what you guys have built?

07:22 I think you’re worried a little more when someone struggles and confidence is very hard to give someone confidence. I think with BP, one, you appreciate the respect. You go through so many years of building this thing up, you always just hope that the young guys that come in just respect, because if you do respect, there’s so much to give from us. So much for us to give and you want to give, always. The beauty about this is Steph, myself, we care about the organization. We don’t just care about what happens this year for us. Like, good, bad, different, we’re tied to this thing forever. Our name will be on this, so you care what that looks like. I’m 45, I don’t want to come watch a sorry ass team play. I wanna come and it’s jumping and you get the whole feeling of, like, how it was when we were doing it, right? Like, and so that matters, you know? And, so to hear BP say that, it’s exciting, but and still as a leader or him, you also understand what that comes with. And so with him, I say, be careful. Don’t tell people too much because the more you tell people, the more they can use it against you and try to tear you down. So I think you can look at the trajectory of this thing we’re all one. We all believe that he’s gonna be one of the guys that can take the torch and run with it, but be careful. Don’t give people too much because the moment you have a bad game, something that our young guys haven’t had to deal with because we are here, is like when things go wrong, they don’t get crushed. We get crushed, right? But like we’ve gotten crushed for years, so it’s fine. Like, when you first start going through that, that’s a different thing that you have to deal with. I think one of the benefits of being a young guy here is you haven’t really had to experience that and I don’t want him to experience that before he has to. That’s a heavy weight and you don’t have to go through that. Like, we leave it where it’s at and so like I said, although we all have the utmost confidence in him and what he’s gonna become, I don’t want him to jump the gun on that and allow people to use it against him. And then people try to speed your clock up like, “Oh man, you should be doing this now.” Like, it’s hard as hell to do that now with us on this team because things are still gonna look a certain way, you know? But then people start trying to speed up your clock and what you should be, and I would hate to see that happen to him because if they try to speed up your clock, but you don’t quite have the opportunity to do what they’re trying to speed you up to do, then it’s an unfair shock, right? And so I want him to, it’s almost like saying, I remember when I was a young kid, my mom told us, like, be a kid as long as you can. Like, stay in that spot as long as you can because so much more comes with it when you get to the spot to where you want to go. Like I said, as a leader, you want the young fella next to you grinding and want to take that. Like that’s what you want, but, like, talk to us about, don’t tell everybody else, don’t let them use it against you. So he will be there, no question, but it ain’t his time to be there yet. So I’m not gonna let everybody try to force that on him right now. He don’t even have the opportunity to be there yet, so he will continue to grow and he can continue to grow. He gonna walk right into, but don’t try to force that on him right now because the opportunity ain’t there. Our offense is built a certain way. You get certain opportunities that this offense ain’t built for him to be. This offense is built for him to be aggressive, but it ain’t built for him to take it over. And if you’re in a spot where it’s not built for you to take over and then people start trying to push at you, you screwed. So he will be after this organization. I ain’t gonna let nobody rush it.

11:52 As a quick follow-up, if you’re not gonna make it in this league without confidence.

11:55 1000%.

11:55 But if you are a young player, especially a new role as somebody to [inaudible, how do you bring in a young player who has a ton of confidence, but to everything you said, he needs to just kind of put it into one slot and maybe instead of just let it overflow.

12:13 It’s a slippery slope. Don’t rein it in too much, you’ll change the guy. So you just let ‘em run around because they fuck it up, you call them in and you try to help them out. Let ‘em run around. You start trying, like, what’s the right amount of confidence to correct. I don’t know that answer. I don’t think anyone knows that, right? And you can only have what you think about. And then you try to turn it into that, but what if that’s too much? And so I take the opposite approach. Let ‘em run rampant. Let his confidence overflow and then you help him where you see fit. You’re trying to change confidence. You can’t give someone confidence. So if you take it away, are you just giving it back? No, can’t just give it back. So I’d rather let his confidence go through the roof and out to the world. And then if you need to help pull it back in, that’s what you do. You build a relationship so that you have the respect to bring it back in, so, but that’s because it went over, right? Like, but just trying to correct, nah. I agree with people having confidence. You should have confidence. You work your ass off to have confidence, so there’s no correcting it, nor should you try.

13:34 Alright, last one. Dalton, here.

13:34 Just kinda keeping the Brandin thing going, he had that game a week ago in LA, I think it was, when he scored 23, 10-of-16, scored at all three levels. We know he can play with you, Steph, Jimmy, he’s a connector that Steve calls him. Going into Year Three, where have you seen maybe the growth to know that he can have those type of games when he doesn’t have you guys on the floor, where tonight, you guys might need off where he can be the primary guy, as well, or does he need to stay himself wherever on the floor?

14:02 No, I think, I was talking about opportunity. Like, you don’t have an opportunity to be that, then your’e gonna have some games where it looks like that, you’re gonna have some games where you may get six shots. That’s just the way it goes, but I think, for him, you want him to be aggressive and if we’re not on the floor, you want him to be even more aggressive, but you also want him to play within himself. You don’t want to kind of put this whole thing on him, like, “Hey man, those guys out. We need you to go for 40.” Like, that’s not even the brand of basketball we play around here. So, I think it’s more of an onus on him, “Okay, everybody’s out, what position do I need to get JK in? Alright, all those guys are out. I’m looking for Buddy a shot. What can I call?” It’s different things like that. It’s not like we need him to go out there and all of a sudden turn into Steph Curry. That’s not a realistic feat. You’re gonna go turn into Kevin Durant, no one has. That’s just not a realistic thing. He’s not gonna go out there tomorrow and be Jimmy Butler. Like, that ain’t real, right? But the growth that you want to see is, like, if you see a young pitcher in the majors, they’re not really talking about whether he can throw a fast ball or a slider or a change up. They’re talking about the sequencing of his pitching, right? Like, “Ah, man, he went slider there. Now he’s gonna go change up, but he’s gonna finish him off with a fast ball, right? Like, you see the OGs talking to him about the sequencing, not necessarily, “Man, your fast ball’s a little off.” Like you know how to throw a fast ball or he wouldn’t be there. But the sequencing can always get better, you know? So you see that and that’s what you want to see from a BP, a young guy. You want to see, “Alright, I got those guys out. How can I unlock JK to get 20 tonight, 25 tonight, so that he can carry this part? That’s what you want to see. Learning the play calls, learn the playbook, knowing, “Man, this team is doing this to us. I call this play that’s gonna open this up. Now, when I open that up I can get to this thing,” right? Like, that’s the growth you want to see, not necessarily him going out there and chucking up 30 shots because we’re not out there. That’s not beneficial for him or anyone else.