Draymond Green begins his 14th NBA season when the Warriors take on the Lakers Oct. 22 on opening night. He is a four-time champion, Defensive Player of the Year winner, four-time All Star and two-time All-NBA player. He will retire as a first-ballot Hall of Famer easily, and despite the ever evolving roster around him, Green will almost certainly retire with the Warriors.
But Green’s also at the point in his career where we see some decline in players, which often leads to the team making a tough decision in moving on from them in favor of a younger — or in Klay Thompson’s case, a cheaper — option. However, Green doesn’t appear to be itching to leave Golden State, and even if he did it certainly wouldn’t be for a rebuilding team.
“Could I average 20 [points] on a lottery team? I have no interest in doing that,” Green said on the “Why is Draymond Green Talking About Football?” podcast when asked how much he could average on a lottery team. “You want me to go play bad basketball? … I once averaged 15 [points] on a great team. So, you do the math.”
Green is probably the worst person to ask that question to, because he’s never been the type of player to chase stats. The reason he’s considered an all-time great is because he carved out a role for himself with the Warriors which consists of a lot of intangible things that don’t show up on the box score. He’s going to be the defensive anchor, capable of sliding between multiple positions, can be the connector offensively as a facilitator and is the heart of the Warriors dynasty with his fiery personality which has its pros and cons.
That lone season Green averaged 15 points (actually was 14 points but that’s a minor discrepancy) is the year that the Warriors set the record for most regular season wins with 73. That team clicked on all cylinders in more ways than one, and could be considered the peak of Golden State’s powers despite losing in the Finals to LeBron James and the Cavaliers. Since that year, Green’s role has been less of a scorer and more as a Swiss army knife doing whatever is necessary.
“I don’t know if I have that mindset anymore,” Green said. “That’s a mindset that you have to have, and I left that mindset so long ago that I’m not sure I could even tap back into that. … The reason I got to the NBA is because I could score. To then come into the NBA and be doing that, and then like have to switch the whole thing up, it’s hard to just go back to that. It requires you to change how you see the game. There’s a certain way that I had to start seeing the game for our teams to work. So to then try to flip back to that, it’s a very tough thing to do.”
Luckily, Green probably doesn’t have to concern himself with those hypotheticals, because it would be incredibly shocking if he didn’t retire with the Warriors. Or at the very least if he were to leave, he’d certainly join another championship-contending team.
