Rookie asserts himself under Green’s tutelage
During halftime of the Warriors’ Oct. 30 win over the Clippers, Jordan Bell leaned forward in his chair and furrowed his brow as Draymond Green rewound the video.
The sequence in question was a double screen that left 6foot-11 center Zaza Pachulia defending Clippers point guard Patrick Beverley at the top of key, a matchup few could expect Pachulia to win. Green pointed out that, had Pachulia and Stephen Curry switched off their men earlier, that mismatch would not have happened.
It was a nuance that no one other than Green had considered. In that moment, as his teammates shook their heads and lauded Green’s defensive acumen, Bell reflected on his circumstances: A player he has emulated for more than three years is showing him daily what it takes to thrive in the NBA.
“It’s definitely surreal,” Bell said.
Bell and Green are both undersized power forwards who can fill in at center, guard all five positions, throw an opponent off with trash talk and be emotional leaders of a Golden State team loaded with mild-mannered personalities. Perhaps the biggest difference between the two is that Bell, a second-round pick like Green, is significantly more athletic than his idol.
It was Bell’s similarities to Green that compelled the Warriors to pay Chicago $3.5 million on draft night for his rights. Now, they’re hoping Green can help the 6-foot-9 rookie from Oregon become a valued piece of a championship roster.
Green, Golden State’s de facto team mom, pulls Bell aside before and after games to pepper him with tips on players’ tendencies, defensive tricks or just a few encouraging words. It is no coincidence that their lockers are next to each other at the practice facility and Oracle Arena. Whenever Bell is placed on the inactive list, Green is there to remind him that this season is about developing the habits that will help him carve out a long career.
“Obviously, I know how it is to be a second-round pick coming into this league,” said Green, who still can name the 34 players who were taken ahead of him in the 2012 NBA draft. “I want to help him realize his potential, because I think he has a ton of potential.”
In the spring of 2014, Bell was watching a Warriors game on TV when Green converted three consecutive floaters over the outstretched arms of a taller defender. Steve Kerr, in his final months as a TNT analyst before becoming Golden State’s head coach, remarked that the 6-7 Green had added a floater to his game to combat the fact that he is smaller than most players guarding him.
Bell realized that Green had much to teach him. As he progressed into the Ducks’ defensive tone-setter, he often cued up Warriors highlights to study Green’s help-side defense, passing and screen-setting. What most struck Bell was that Green seemed to see plays moments before they unfolded.
After games in which he stuffed the box score, Bell told anyone within earshot: “That’s how Draymond does it.”
Bell fell to the second round of June’s draft for some of the same reasons Green had five years earlier. Many front offices worried that Bell was too slow to stop NBA small forwards and too small to guard big men. Though he shot 61 percent from the field in his three seasons at Oregon, Bell was raw offensively.
In Bell, Golden State general manager Bob Myers saw an ideal fit for a league shifting to smaller, more versatile lineups. It was roughly 30 minutes after the Bulls shipped Bell, the No. 38 pick, to the Warriors on draft night that Bell’s iPhone buzzed with a FaceTime request.
“Enjoy this night because it only happens once,” Green told him. “But after this, we have to get back to work. We’re trying to get rings over here.”
“I think that was kind of the start of where the bond started,” recalled Sharrief Metoyer, Bell’s mentor and former high school coach. “Had Draymond waited three or four days, I don’t know if it would’ve been the same. I think it was the fact that he called Jordan on draft night, shortly after his name was called.”
Green invited Bell to train with him this past summer in Los Angeles. After Bell missed a jumper on the final play of a pick-up game, Green barked, “Throw that sh— down!” It was only a day or two later that Bell matched up with LeBron James during a game at UCLA.
Green advised Bell to push James toward the three-point line. After James drained several three-pointers, Green saw Bell hanging his head and said, “Look, you can’t do anything about that. Just worry about the next play.”
Now, 14 games into his NBA career, Bell already looks like a foundational piece of the Warriors’ future. He is shooting 71 percent (22-for-31) from the field. In a defensive system that calls for frontcourt players to defend guards off screens, Bell is an asset.
With Green resting during Friday’s rout of Chicago, Bell slid into the starting lineup and posted a Green-esque stat line of seven points, six blocks, four assists, six rebounds and two steals. The last NBA rookie to swat that many shots in his first start was the Clippers’ DeAndre Jordan in January 2009.
Saturday evening, when Bell arrived at Oracle Arena for Golden State’s game against New Orleans, Green stopped him in the locker room. There were a few times Bell had jumped on pump fakes that Green wanted to discuss.
“He’s going to help us win a lot of games,” Green said. “I’m just trying to help game by game, day by day, passing along some of the things I know.”