Draymond Green played his worst basketball a couple of years back but made himself some goals along the way which he is realizing now.
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Very little to nothing in what the Golden State Warriors do on the basketball court goes through without Draymond Green at the center of it. It’s now a fact around the league that the point-forward of the Dubs is the backbone of the team.
The Splash Brothers might get most of the love when the Warriors were writing history as the best team of the last decade, but even they know that the 3x Champions and 5x finalists in the 2010s wouldn’t achieve half the success without Green at their helm.
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“Nobody with his stat line is even considering an All-Star appearance. If you’re just staring at it, then you’re missing the entire point of who he is as a basketball player. When you watch our games, and you see the way he impacts the defensive end, his creativity, his consistency, seeing everything two steps ahead. I don’t know how many people could do what he does, that says a lot about what he’s made himself to be coming from where he came from out of Michigan State.” Stephen Curry said about his teammate making it to the All-Star team again on the Dubs Talk podcast.
One of the league’s best defenders and facilitators, Green is entirely responsible for being the floor general for the Warriors, and he has excelled at it better than anyone in the game.
But he was struggling to find his usual self back in 2019-20 and had to make it his goal to get back his All-Star status.
Draymond Green set some goals, achieved an Olympic Gold and an All-Star appearance
Warriors had almost nothing to do with the 2020 Playoffs, that much was clear since the start of that season when Stephen Curry broke his wrist just 4-games into the season. That came following Kevin Durant’s move to the Brooklyn Nets in the off-season and Klay Thompson‘s torn ACL in the 2019 Playoffs.
So, Green just had the sole responsibility of developing the youngsters in the Bay Area. While doing that, the then 3-time All-Star played the worst basketball of his career.
“It is a special thing,” Green said in an interview last week after getting selected for his 4th All-Star appearance. “It’s a very special thing because two years ago, I had probably the worst season of my basketball career, including my first year ever playing in first grade, I kind of made a goal of this two-year plan of how can I get back to being an All-Star?” Green said.
Though he did average 8.0 points per game which is close to his career average, his 6.2 rebounds per game were his lowest since his second season in the league while his 6.2 assists per game were his lowest since his first season as a starter.
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Draymond continued, “The reality is, that year I was so terrible, and I was so out of it and drained and exhausted – I don’t believe in cutting corners, I don’t believe it ever works when you do cut corners, so I didn’t make a goal of being an All-Star last year.”
His offensive rating was his worst since his sophomore year in the league and his ‘-0.2’ Plus-Minus was his worst since his rookie year while his defensive rating was the worst of his career.
All-Star appearance was just the first stepping stone in a list of hefty goals for Green
Having found his defensive footing last season, Dray made it to the All-Defensive first team once again after missing the call since 2017 when he also won the Defensive Player of the Year award along with the Warriors’ second championship.
Those two awards are also among his three goals for this season.
“I made a goal to get back to playing good basketball last year, re-establish being Draymond Green as a basketball player, as a brand – that was my goal going into last year in hopes that that would lead me going into an Olympics, which I did – won a gold medal – and then coming into this season in shape, which I did, in hopes that that would possibly lead me to an All-Star appearance and that would lead me to another Defensive Player of the Year trophy and then ultimately leading us to another championship,” Green said.
After achieving one of his three goals, the 2017 steals leader would want to check off the remaining two as well.
“Up until this point, I have executed that plan to the T. I still think I can execute the last two things of it, and that’s my goal.”
Whatever the future has in store for the Dubs solely depends on how Draymond looks after coming back from his back problems.
Having made the media and fans assure that it won’t be a big deal if his return exceeds the speculated time of early March, Green might as well take all his time to be his best-come playoff time.
