Stars embrace being `old heads' for next generation
SAN FRANCISCO >> Earlier this season, Draymond Green was convinced he was the butt of all of Jonathan Kuminga's jokes.
“Every time he sees me when he's walking by, he just starts laughing,” Green recalled telling his trainer and friend Travis Walton months ago. “I don't necessarily think he thinks I'm funny; I think he's laughing at me.”
Why would a 19-year-old rookie be poking fun at his senior counterpart?
“Imagine when you see one of the old heads doing something, if you see an OG, old head doing something, you're going to laugh and be like, `All right, I see you, OG.' And you're really laughing at the fact that that's so old school that it's funny,” Green, 32, said Thursday. “That's how I feel like he was looking at me, like dude, you're just old. You move old. You look old.”
Once the baby-faced young men who led the Warriors to their first title in 40 years back in 2015, Green, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are now the veterans guiding the next generation of Warriors during another NBA Finals run.
This year's crew features two generations of players, millennials and Gen Z, with a rather large age gap between its core and rising stars such as Jordan Poole, Moses Moody and Kuminga. To put it in perspective, Moody and Kuminga were 7 and 6 years old, respectively, when Curry was picked seventh overall in the 2009 NBA draft.
“I try not to let my mind think about that too much because I don't want to feed into
it,” Curry, 34, said. “I want to feel like I'm still in my prime for as long as I can go out there and hoop the way I am.”
The generational divide has caused some of the veterans to adapt their leadership styles to better suit the younger players.
“It's a totally different world that we live in from the year that Jonathan Kuminga is 19 years old, as opposed to the year I was 19 years old,” Green said. “You end up having to learn their generation because you just can't lead them the same way you could lead someone that's kind of our generation. You figure out what buttons to press, and how do you get to them, how to treat them and what's the best way.”
Green said he treats the
younger players more like a son or brother rather than a friend.
Curry connects with younger players by having straight oneon-one conversations and by setting an example in his day to day work.
While Green said he believes guys like Kuminga look at him the same way he would look at a “55-year-old man that got on his gear,” Thompson says he still has “great years ahead.”
“Although we've been doing this a long time, 32 is very young in the big picture of life. Just because our lives are out there in front of the camera, people see us grow up,” Thompson said. “I still feel very young.
“But I mean, I think I have a lot of wisdom compared to where I was the first time we
did this. So I can be an old head in that sense.”
PAYTON II, PORTER JR., IGUODALA CLEARED TO PLAY >> Golden State welcomed a wave of reinforcements, with Gary Payton II (elbow), Otto Porter Jr. (foot) and Andre Iguodala (neck) all available for Game 1 at Chase Center.
All three responded well to a full contact practice Wednesday afternoon, coach Steve Kerr said before the game. They had been listed on the injury report as questionable but were then given the green light to play in the series opener against the Celtics.
“It's great to have all three guys back, and I think all three can contribute, for sure,” Kerr said.”