The Warriors had to feel stressed out this season, right?
After having the NBA's worst record following five straight trips to the NBA Finals, the Warriors were ready to prove their dynasty wasn't over. Then, Klay Thompson tore his Achilles, keeping him out for a second straight season. Golden State already was behind before the game even began.
But stressed? Draymond Green begs to differ.
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“I think under the circumstances, we played well," Green said on "The Big Podcast with Shaq." "It doesn’t rank up there with the top seasons in my career at all because we lost. It definitely doesn’t rank at the top of my career as far as stress goes, because losing is easy. It’s the winning that’s hard, it’s the expectation that I'm going in there every single day, knowing that everyone thinks you’re going to win, knowing that everyone’s watching, the expectations are as high up as you can see. Those are the stressful times, losing is easy.
"We didn’t make the playoffs, that’s not very stressful to me. When you go into a game and you’re not expected to win, there’s no stress in that. I don’t think as far as stress goes -- from a basketball standpoint -- this season was stressful at all."
The Warriors went 39-33 in the regular season, which was good for the No. 8 seed in the Western Conference. But that wasn't good enough for the playoffs in the NBA's new format.
Golden State lost not once but twice in the play-in tournament, ending their season early. Green knows the odds were against them this season, but he also has to know in the back of his mind this team should have been good enough to at least make the playoffs with Steph Curry playing like an MVP.
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As far as off the court goes, Green admitted the stress was second to none.
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"From an overall standpoint, it was extremely stressful with all of the COVID tests [and all of those factors]," Green said. "With all of that stuff it was difficult, but from a basketball standpoint, you’re not expected to win.
"Ain’t no stress in that, which is why you can see guys play great on terrible teams and then they go to teams where games are meaningful and all of the sudden you don’t recognize the player.”