Draymond Green sounded like a guy auditioning for a post-playing career on a hot-takes sports show Sunday night.
Dropped into the TNT desk portion of the broadcast (while the TNT A-Team was “coaching” their All-Star teams), he ripped the new format saying it was a “zero out of 10″ and as for the Rising Stars fourth team, “Because ratings are down, because the game’s bad, we’re bringing in Rising Stars? That’s not a fix.” This was during the broadcast of the event — what other sport has its media partners and star players shred the product on air during a game broadcast like this? Oscar Robertson was right.
Green also talked about the Warriors for the final couple months of the season.
“Since [Jimmy Butler’s] been here, we’ve walked into every game thinking and believing that we’re going to win that game. And that goes a long way in this league. When you walk in the game like, ‘Ah man, we’re probably gonna lose this game,’ it’s not good. He’s brought back that belief. And I think we’re going to win the championship.”
Warriors fans should want Green to say and believe this. In a West that feels wide open after Oklahoma City, a newly energized Warriors team should believe they have a chance.
In the four games Butler has been with the Warriors they are 3-1, with a much-improved defense over that stretch — small sample size theater, but it’s a good sign. The Warriors also have the second-easiest remaining schedule in the West.
The Warriors are going to need all the wins they can get — they sit tied for 9/10 in the West with the Kings and, while they can say they are just 3.5 games out of the No. 6 seed, moving up is not going to be easy. The Warriors will need to jump over Sacramento (which added Zach LaVine for scoring), Phoenix (with Kevin Durant and Devin Booker), a Minnesota team that has found a rhythm of late, and a Clippers team that just got Kawhi Leonard back. Most likely, the Warriors will have to fight their way out of the play-in.
That’s just not how Draymond Green should view the world.
NBC Sports
