Draymond breaks down what it will take to stop playing ‘terrible'

Draymond Green hasn’t stopped, and probably won’t stop, exposing the ugly truth about the Warriors’ anticlimatic finish to the regular season. 

It’s easy to point fingers at why Golden State has lost 11 of its last 16 games. Injuries. Slumps. The absence of Steph Curry. 

The damage that Steph’s absence has had on the Warriors, who are now 3-9 without the superstar, couldn’t have come at a worse time as playoffs are around the corner. 

Still, Draymond isn’t making excuses and dissected what it will take from the team’s leaders to turn this thing around. 

“Going around the association, the Warriors are 1-5 since Steph went out [in March] and since I have returned,” Green said on his podcast “The Draymond Green Show”. “I have a minus-41 in the seven games that I’ve played [since returning on March 14], which is absolutely mindboggling to me. But in saying that, who can put their finger on it better than anyone is me.

“The reality is I’m always going to be honest. As you know, maybe like a week ago now, I called out my teammates, I called out us, not just my teammates, I called out us for being soft. I called out us for getting punked. I called out us for laying down and not competing at the level that we know that it takes to compete at in order to win in the NBA.” 

Last week, a frustrated Draymond said the team was playing “soft” and stupid” following their loss to the Orlando Magic, one of the worst teams in the league. 

The next day, Green clarified his comments and took full blame for the inexcusable loss. 

“One thing I hate is a leader that can call someone else out but think that their s--t don’t stink,” Draymond said on the podcast. “Because you, my friend, are not a leader. You, my friend, are a phony. You, my friend, are fake … I don’t respect leaders like that so don’t ever expect me to be a leader like that.”  

Green returned to the court in mid-March after being sidelined since Jan. 6 with a back injury. 

And while the Dubs struggled without their defensive anchor, the expectation was that things would turn full circle as soon as he returned -- but they didn’t. 

Green told reporters in Washington after the Warriors’ loss to the Wizards that he’s never been on a team that plays worse with him on the floor, but said “that’s kind of where we are right now”. 

“I caught a little backlash from people that know the game,” Green said on the podcast. “From people that are in my corner, from people that are not in my corner and simply are just fans of basketball and just saying like ‘Yo, give yourself a break. You’ve come off a very serious injury, we know the team isn’t what the team could be without you, and all of that stuff.’ Thanks, I appreciate it, but the reality is I’ve been terrible. I’ve been terrible defensively, I’ve been terrible offensively. And so that’s just what it is.”

While Draymond is his and everyone else’s biggest critic, he knows -- now -- that it will take time to get back to his pre-injured ways. 

And what will it take to fix that? 

Putting in the work, as Draymond said he has been doing as always. But the key is being patient, an apparent new concept that Green will have to learn. 

“The reality is in my mind I thought it worked like that and I just assumed I would come right back playing like I was when I left,” Green said. “But this is also my first time having an injury that kept me out that long. So in my mind, I’m like ‘Yeah, I’ve been working probably harder than I’ve ever worked and improved muscles I didn’t even know I had in my body and that existed. I’ve been putting the work in, I’m going to see the results.’ I haven’t and that’s OK. 

“I think there are a ton of things I can get better at, I think there are a ton of things I will get better at. I think my personal frustration with myself has been that everything has been a step slow for me. I see a pass, I make a pass, I go to finally make the pass and boom, it’s a turnover. Just tapping back in with those quick-twitch muscles and reading and reacting to things, it’s taking a little while for it to come back, a little longer than I expected.”

With six games remaining in the regular season, the Warriors need to find the remedy now. 

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And if they want a chance to compete in the postseason, it’s going to take guys like Green, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala to help lead their teammates who are new at this. 

And when their leaders lead and their roster is healthy, Draymond has no doubt this team can and will compete. 

“I’m fine, we’ll be fine,” he said. “I think health is an important thing so we definitely have to get healthy and I think we will get healthy. One thing you never want to do is stumble into the playoffs. When you stumble into the playoffs, you stumble through the playoffs and out. These next six games are on me as a leader, it’s on Klay Thompson as a leader with Steph Curry out, to lead our guys to lead our troops what it takes to compete at this level to prepare for a nice, deep playoff run and hopefully, that’s ending in a championship. But that falls on us, we have to do a better job and we will do a better job.” 

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