As part of a long NBA offseason that included coming down from the high of his second championship in three years, Warriors forward Draymond Green sat down for an interview and subsequent feature story by GQ Magazine’s Clay Skipper.
Draymond Green says Cavs ‘didn’t stand a f*****g chance’ in NBA Finals
Some of the best quotes from Green’s recent interview with GQ Magazine.
Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images
The highly quotable two-time All-Star delivered some of the best lines of the year, touching on Golden State’s 4-1 Finals win over Cleveland, how teams are attempting to prepare for a monstrous Warriors team this year, and even Kyrie Irving’s decision to leave LeBron James and the Cavaliers for a new start with the Boston Celtics.
Here were some of his best quotes:
1. Green on beating the Cavaliers in five games:
The Warriors held a 3-0 lead over the Cavs entering an elimination Game 4 that could have secured the first-ever 16-0 playoff run in NBA history. It never happened. LeBron put up 31 points, 10 rebounds, and 11 assists, and Cleveland hit 24-of-45 threes (53.3 percent) to live to fight another day. Golden State wrapped things up in Game 5, but Green still wishes they beat the Cavaliers without taking an L:
“They didn’t stand a fucking chance,” he says of the Cavs, who lost in five games. “It pissed me off we didn’t sweep them, though.”
“That’d never been done!” Green exclaims. “They don’t come out and hit twenty-four threes and they’re swept. And that’s the second best team in the world. It’s pretty fucking sick to see how everybody is just in a fucking panic about what to do. You sit back and think, like, these motherfuckers, they know. That’s the fun part about it: They know they don’t stand a chance.”
2. Green on how teams are trying to change their game plan for the Warriors
Green reads Rockets GM Daryl Morey’s comments about Golden State not being unbeatable: “There have been bigger upsets in sports history,” Morey said to ESPN’s Zach Lowe in mid-June. “We are going to keep improving our roster. We are used to long odds. If Golden State makes the odds longer, we might up our risk profile and get even more aggressive. We have something up our sleeve.”
Then he pauses, scoffing at Morey’s comments.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he says. “They are really trying to rethink their whole strategy”—here he bumps a table repeatedly with his hand for emphasis, getting excited—“because teams know they don’t have a fucking clue.”
3. Green tells the story of when he called Kobe
After he rocked Steven Adams in his junk twice in the 2016 Western Conference Finals, he swiped at LeBron’s in Game 4 of the 2016 NBA Finals. As a consequence, he was suspended for Game 5 with the Warriors up 3-1. Cleveland won Game 5, then won Games 6 and 7 to win the first championship in franchise history.
Bearing the brunt of that Finals loss put Green in a dark place, but it was Kobe Bryant who helped him out of it.
Bryant’s words, according to Green: Ninety-eight percent of people are okay with mediocrity or less. Guys like Bryant and Green, though, they’re out for something different—greatness. So, Green remembers Kobe saying, “as long as you wait for them to understand you, you’re fucked.”
“It was the best shit I ever heard,” Green says. “Because it gave me an understanding of why people don’t understand me. I’m so crazy competitive. I put my competitiveness up there with anyone. How could someone understand that? It’s a different level.”
4. Green on when he leaked a picture of his junk on Snapchat, then had to plea out of slapping a Michigan State football player
This one kinda speaks for itself:
“That was rock bottom for me,” Green says. “People always wanted to paint me as this villain, this problem child, this guy who can’t control himself, this dangerous guy. I had heard that shit my entire life. And like: Motherfucker, you can’t tell me I’m this or that. I got good grades and I graduated college, and I’m never in trouble. Like real trouble. Getting a fucking tech is getting a tech—it’s basketball.
But to get in trouble like that, and finally give people who’ve always wanted to say, ‘I told y’all, he’s this type of guy, or he’s a distraction’—for the first time in my life, I gave them room to say that. I did that. And it fucking destroyed me. That hurt me more than anything. I just gave motherfuckers ammo to shoot me with. When they’ve always tried to shoot, but they never had any ammo. I gift wrapped them ammo. To shoot me.”
Damn.
Clay Skipper’s full story on Draymond Green is dope, and you should take a few minutes out of your day to read it on GQ.com here.
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