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Warriors forward\u00a0Draymond Green poses during Media Day on Monday at Chase Center.<\/p>\n
Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n
Draymond Green<\/a>\u2019s name surfaced in trade talks last season, as the Golden State Warriors<\/a> chased Giannis Antetokounmpo. Green\u2019s name surfaced again in the early days of free agency, when he declined his player option to help the Warriors chase LeBron James.<\/p>\n Now, as training camp kicks into gear this week in Hawaii\u00a0\u2014 with Antetokounmpo in Miami and James in Philadelphia\u00a0\u2014 Green\u2019s name matters in a different context. Not as trade bait to lure one superstar, or contract maneuvering to bring in another, but as the longtime sidekick to a third.<\/p>\n Green remains attached<\/a> to Stephen Curry<\/a>, at least for now.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Green will play this season on an expiring contract, again, which inevitably will stir speculation about his future. The Warriors positioned themselves for a potentially massive makeover next summer, when the contracts of Green ($27.7 million) and Jimmy Butler ($56.8 million) both expire.\u00a0<\/p>\n Warriors forward Draymond Green defends against San Antonio Spurs center-forward Victor\u00a0Wembanyama at Chase Center on\u00a0Feb. 11. Golden State finished 2-2 last season against the eventual Western Conference champions.<\/p>\n Carlos Avila Gonzalez\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n Last season, Green sat in the interview room at Chase Center and candidly shared his emotions upon realizing his decorated Warriors run might soon end. He offered no introspective encore Monday.<\/p>\n This time, on Media Day, Green dismissed the significance of starting another season on a one-year deal, assured of nothing beyond the 82-game marathon ahead.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n \u201cI am boots on the ground trying to enjoy every second, because you just don\u2019t know how many (more) you have,\u201d he said. \u201cI have zero care for what happens with my contract or what happens after this year. I did that last year and I\u2019m never doing it again. It\u2019s a complete waste of my energy and time.\u201d<\/p>\n Even so, how Green plays in his 15th season could shape what happens next. He\u2019s a four-time NBA champion and defensive maestro, but he also turns 37 in March\u00a0\u2014 and his game showed striking statistical decline last season.\u00a0<\/p>\n Green committed 3.5 turnovers per 36 minutes, the second-highest single-season average of his career. He also posted a career-worst defensive rating of 113.6 (measuring points per 100 possessions), according to nba.com<\/a>, and his offensive rating of 109.4 was his lowest since 2019-20.\u00a0<\/p>\n Warriors guard Stephen Curry and forward\u00a0Draymond Green bump chests during a\u00a0game against the Utah Jazz at Chase Center on Jan. 3.<\/p>\n Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n Also worth noting: The offensive rating for Green and Curry as a two-man combination was 117.7, significantly higher than Green\u2019s overall number.<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n His defense still sparkled at times \u2014 see the waning minutes of Golden State\u2019s dramatic play-in win over the Los Angeles Clippers \u2014 but opponents often left Green undefended on the perimeter, daring him to shoot. And now head coach Steve Kerr<\/a> curiously wants Green to spend more time on the perimeter.<\/p>\n That\u2019s the plan, as part of a broader \u201creimagining\u201d of how this team operates offensively. Kerr expects Green to launch 3-point shots when he\u2019s open, expanding the strategic tweaks made last season. Green took a career-high 4.6 shots per game beyond the arc in 2025-26\u00a0\u2014 while shooting a ho-hum 32.6%.\u00a0<\/p>\n The Warriors want to spread the court, a league-wide trend they embraced by adding floor-spacing centers\u00a0\u2014 first Quinten Post (now in Memphis), then Al Horford<\/a> and Kristaps Porzingis<\/a>. Green will continue to have license to let it fly beyond the arc.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen he shoots open 3s, good things happen for us,\u201d Kerr said, despite the increase in Green\u2019s attempts during a disappointing 37-45 season. \u201cThere\u2019s a flow to the game. What I think has changed the most in the NBA and for us these last couple of years is the spacing. Draymond\u2019s first 10 years we played with basically two bigs, and kind of played off the elbows.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019re playing a more modern brand of basketball now, five-out. Draymond will find himself on the perimeter more, so that puts him in a slightly different role\u00a0\u2014 shooting, crashing, spreading the floor for other people, dribble hand-off stuff. It\u2019s an adjustment for everybody, not just Draymond.\u201d<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Warriors forward\u00a0Draymond Green tries to break down Detroit Pistons forward Ronald Holland II during\u00a0a game at Chase Center on Jan. 30.<\/p>\n Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n Asked whether he\u2019s kind of nervous about his shifting role, Green joked that he\u2019s \u201cshaking in my boots.\u201d He suggested the changes will be subtle, and in some ways a welcome challenge as he and the Warriors seek to return to relevance in a stacked Western Conference.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI feel like I\u2019ve always kind of been on the perimeter,\u201d Green said. \u201cI know we\u2019re going to run some different things offensively. Now that doesn\u2019t mean we\u2019re going to completely can who we\u2019ve been, right? But for everything that\u2019s different, you\u2019ve just got to make the adjustment.\u201d<\/p>\n Kerr largely has been open about the need for change since his team missed the playoffs for the second time in three years, then struck out on James and other potential big-name acquisitions. The Warriors need to function differently, play more efficiently and win games \u201con the margins,\u201d as he put it\u00a0\u2014 a polite way of acknowledging they didn\u2019t add a ton of talent.\u00a0<\/p>\n One byproduct of this revised thinking: Curry and Green no longer have permission to collectively commit five or six turnovers per game. Kerr gave them a pass of sorts in the past, because they handle the ball so frequently and because their distinctive, chaotic style fueled Golden State\u2019s potent offense.\u00a0<\/p>\n Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n Warriors forward\u00a0Draymond Green hits a three-pointer against the Detroit Pistons\u00a0at Chase Center on Jan. 30.<\/p>\n Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle<\/p>\n The Warriors averaged 15.7 turnovers last season, tied with Washington for third worst in the league, ahead of only Brooklyn and Portland. The NBA\u2019s six worst turnover teams all missed the playoffs. That\u2019s not a coincidence.<\/p>\n \u201cWe need to figure it out,\u201d Green said of Kerr removing the allowance for him and Curry, \u201cso we will.\u201d<\/p>\n Widen the scope, and Green sounded grateful Monday to simply play a central role in the success (or failure) of the Warriors. He compared it to golf, his new passion, and told the story of a friend suggesting he hit a lay-up shot during a recent round.\u00a0<\/p>\n Green ignored the advice and tried to lift his ball over a tree. The ball smacked into the tree and fell to earth, Green said, but he had no regrets because he went for it. He plans to take the same approach on the basketball court, even if many tall trees stand in the way.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Warriors forward\u00a0Draymond Green poses during Media Day on Monday at Chase Center. Santiago Mejia\/S.F. Chronicle Draymond Green\u2019s name…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":910622,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,7901,590,85,3198],"class_list":["post-910621","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-draymond-green","tag-nba","tag-sports","tag-warriors"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910621","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910621"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910621\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/910622"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910621"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910621"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910621"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/p>\n
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