Purdy: Green’s extra incentive?
OAKLAND — If it seems to you that Draymond Green has been particularly awesome for the Warriors so far in the playoffs, stepping it up noticeably, your senses are not deceiving you.
Green’s statistics reflect it slightly. In just two more minutes of playing time per game compared to the regular season, he is averaging almost two more rebounds, about one more block and 3.7 more points. But the eyeball test is even more impressive. There are certain stretches during the Warriors’ 12-0 run through the first three rounds when the Warriors’ undersized 6-foot-7 “big man” is dominating the action so visibly at both ends of the court, you ask yourself: “What’s gotten into this guy and is driving him?”
I have an idea about that.
The popular wisdom is that Green wants to atone for a year ago when his knucklehead tendency to commit flagrant fouls resulted in a one-game suspension during the NBA Finals against Cleveland and allowed the Cavaliers to climb out of a 3-1 hole to come back and win the series. Maybe. But for those of us who were in Rio de Janeiro last summer and watched the Olympic basketball tournament, there is a second opinion.
Green was one of three Warriors wearing a USA uniform in Brazil — the Yankee Doodle Dubs, I called them — but he had the least impact.
While Kevin Durant played 28.6 minutes per game and averaged 19.4 points, Green … well, didn’t.
While Klay Thompson averaged 21.1 minutes and 9.9 minutes per game, Green mostly sat.
For whatever reason, USA head coach Mike Krzyzewkski decided to give Green modest minutes and what amounted to a tertiary role on the team. Of the 10 American roster members who played in all eight tournament games, Green had the least playing time. In his 9.9 minutes per game, he averaged 1.9 points.
It was strange to witness then and seems even stranger in retrospect, especially after Green returned to the Warriors and again made the All-NBA roster. Were there unspoken circumstances at play? Just before the Games, Green had an embarrassing incident involving his Snapchat account and was involved in a kerfuffle at a bar in Michigan. But none of that kept him off the team. It shouldn’t have kept him on the bench.
Krzyzekski was asked in Rio once why Green saw so little action and gave a vague answer about everybody on the team having a certain role. Krzyzewski wasn’t required to explain further and shouldn’t have been. His job was to win a gold medal. He did. But the choice to keep Green on ice was odd, although he never complained about it in Brazil. He stuck with the proper public statements about simply being pleased to represent his country.
I wondered, however, if Green might use his repressed Rio action as motivation to show the country that he deserved to represent them more, um, visibly. It surely had to grind Green to see such comparatively lesser NBA talents as Jimmy Butler (14.4 minutes per game) and DeMarcus Cousins (14.8 minutes) on the floor more frequently in Brazil.
As one basketball man I trust points out, Krzyzewski could have just been more inclined to use a traditional lineup that calls for someone taller than a 6-foot-7 man at the No. 4 or No. 5 positions. Green has told some Warrior personnel that he accepts that explanation. That doesn’t mean he had to like it.
That’s why my suspicion is that Green, knowing that the playoffs draw the largest national television audience, is out to prove a point this spring. And the point isn’t merely about last summer in Rio. It is about Olympic summers to come when Green should also be in the USA roster mix. It’s hardly the only thing or biggest thing driving Green in these playoffs. There’s so much else at stake. But on some level, even if it’s a secret he is keeping to himself, Rio has to be an element of his motivation as he rips through these playoffs. Yes?
I ran that hypothesis by Durant, who mostly shot it down but did so diplomatically.
“I mean, he’s Draymond Green, the 35th pick in the draft,” Durant said. “Nobody thought he’d be who he is today. So he always has that chip on his shoulder and he always has that motivation. I think just because he loves to play the game and also, on top of that, the fact that so many people passed on him and didn’t appreciate his skill set … So I don’t think the Olympics and not playing had anything to do with it. That experience for him, I could tell, was something he never thought he’d go through — to get a gold medal and be among the top 12 or 13 players in the world … I don’t think playing time really meant much to him in that.”
Does that mean Green and Durant never discussed the topic during the Games in Brazil?
“No, not really,” Durant said.
(Translation: They probably talked about it some.)
“Obviously, everybody wants to be out there and playing,” Durant elaborated. “But he was great teammate. He didn’t care about the minutes. And we went out there and won a gold medal together. So I think that’s the most important thing to him.”
At the time, that’s basically what Green said. When he came off the floor in Rio following the gold medal ceremony, I was among those who asked Green about the experience and whether he was happy with how it turned out.
“I came here thinking, I’m going to do whatever I can and do whatever I have to do,” Green said. “If that means play a lot, if that means not play a lot, that’s the way it is. The goal is to win a gold medal. To do this on behalf of your country, I’m blessed to have this opportunity.”
No argument with that. But now Green has another opportunity. He’s definitely seizing it. Rio repression revenge or otherwise.