Warriors veteran Draymond Green noticed second-year center Trayce Jackson-Davis made an honorable sacrifice for rookie center Quinten Post in Golden State’s 121-116 win over the Memphis Grizzlies in the NBA play-in tournament on Tuesday night.
And Green made sure to highlight it when talking to reporters postgame.
“I want to mention something that I saw today that no one will give a s–t about,” Green prefaced. “Trayce Jackson-Davis did something on the bench today. He didn’t play in the game. There were no seats on the bench, Quinten Post said, ‘Trayce, can I get that seat?’ and Trayce just got up. And a part of me was baffled that he got up for the rookie. Because the rookie – if there’s no seat, you sit on the floor. [Jackson-Davis] just got up and gave him the seat.
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SIGN UP HERE “And I walked over to [Jackson-Davis] and said that’s one of the more selfless things I’ve ever seen. Ninety-nine percent of the time, you’re going to be like, ‘You going to go sit on the floor, rook. Go find a seat somewhere else.' But [Jackson-Davis] knew he wasn’t part of the rotation, and yet the rookie was. They’re playing the same position, and [Jackson-Davis] got up and went and stood in the tunnel because there were no seats.”
Jackson-Davis, 25, has the class of a pro’s pro.
It isn’t easy to be out of coach Steve Kerr’s rotation during the Warriors’ biggest game of the 2024-25 NBA season. It also isn’t easy to give up your seat for a less-experienced player who is playing crucial minutes over you.
Yet, Jackson-Davis did exactly that for Post – who finished with 11 points on 4-of-5 shooting, five rebounds and tied with Green as a game-high plus-12 – and the respectful moment clearly helped Golden State reach its first-round NBA playoff series against the Houston Rockets, even if he didn’t find his way onto the court.
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“I just wanted to put that out there because that to me – that’s why you win games,” Green told reporters. “It’s chemistry, selflessness, togetherness, and I just thought that was a huge moment. Nobody else saw it except us three. And so I wanted to share that. I thought that was a really big moment for our bench.
“You know, you can make [Post] sit on the floor and nothing happens, or you can get up and boost confidence in him and he’ll go back out there and hit a [three-point shot]. And I thought that was special.”
Green has seen it all over his illustrious 14-year Warriors career. And even he was “baffled” by Jackson-Davis’ willingness to give up his seat for the fellow 25-year-old.
The type of honorability displayed by Jackson-Davis is exactly what Golden State needs moving forward in the postseason.