Draymond Green on ejection in Warriors vs. Orlando Magic: “I deserved it” | Draymond Green Show

What's up everybody? Welcome to the Draymond Green Show YouTube channel. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. Make sure you like the post that you love. Thank you. What's up everybody? Welcome back to the Draymond Green Show. Interesting game in Orlando last night. We'll get into that. We are back with another episode on the Bleacher Report app, which means it's live. So we'll be answering some mailbag questions at the end of the episode. So make sure you drop those in chat. Also make sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel, youtube.com/@DraymondShow. Excuse me, @DraymondGreenShow. YouTube.com/@DraymondGreenShow. That is the little at symbol, not A-T. The little at symbol, Draymond Green Show. Check that out. Let's get into this episode. The Dubs win 2 straight on the Florida swing. Man, the Florida swing is tough this year. Orlando has gotten better. They're a playoff team. They got those young guys, which we've talked about, and Paulo and Franz, who I think, you know, their futures, which we'll get into in a minute. But coming down and getting those two wins, especially after a tough home stretch, was very important, especially with the standings and with Tyrese Houston Rockets trailing us. Yeah.— for a play-in spot, it was an important couple games for us. And to start the trip off going to Minnesota, which was a tough loss. We led the whole way and weren't able to close that game out in the fourth quarter. They had a big fourth quarter. We just weren't able to close that game out. And to come down to the— on the Florida swing where Miami is Miami. We all know who Miami is regardless of who they have on the floor. Always gonna be a tough game. Bam's playing great basketball. And you know, the Miami Heat just always find those guys. Hey, Will Highsmith was getting off. I'm not sure where he came from, what's his backstory, but he's just another one of those guys that Miami have found. And then coming into Orlando, a team that, young team who's always motivated to play against us coming in on the back-to-back. Which is always tough. It's like, it's always Orlando on a back-to-back, Orlando on the front of a back-to-back. Like it's always something. And I hate that it always gets scheduled like that. But that is the nature of it. I think that'll start to change as Orlando keep getting better. You know, you're gonna have these young guys in the playoffs this year and not sure if you all know, but the NBA schedule is based on a national TV schedule. So the national TV, ESPN, TNT, ABC, they all get to pick the games that they want and then the schedule is filled in around that. Obviously we've had a million national TV games over the last 10 years due to the Steph Curry effect. And Orlando hasn't had a bunch of 'em. I think they had one this year. But so in theory, like the Orlando game always just get kind of slid onto the schedule around Miami, which is normally a national TV game. And so it just kind of always gets slipped in there because you're on the Florida swing and it just always makes it a tough game. Like I said, I think as these young guys continue to show and become household names in this league, like I think Paulo Banchero will, which I said years ago before he was drafted, Always been a big fan of Paolo Banchero. Thought he was undoubtedly the number one pick in his draft. He's shown that, continues to grow. Had a conversation with Gary Harris, who's my young fella, Michigan State, go green, go white. And Gary was confirming to me more of what I thought, which is like, nah, Paolo is a serious guy. He's mature, doesn't quite act like he's 21 years old. And he says something to me that I, don't doubt one bit, and that I've thought from the beginning, which was, yeah, Dray, he'll probably be an All-Star the rest of his career. Like, he's just figuring it out. And as he figures it out, it's like he's more and more motivated. And he's already a motivated kid. Like, he's from Seattle. We know the roots that's been laid there. We know his upbringing. We know he's had— Yeah. Guys like Draymond Green, Nate, you know, and Brandon, like all of those guys around just to show you how to be a pro. And so with Paulo, he already got a leg up in that aspect, which is huge, especially coming to a team that don't really have many veterans. They got G, which I think to have Gary Harris around is big for that team because G is a stable guy. He's been in the league for 10 years now. He's well respected by everybody in the league and he's a pro. And so I think that's great for those guys, you know, having Joe Ingles this year. But you know, just, and just having a young team like that with not many veterans, that upbringing is huge for Paulo because in a sense you've already been shown what it's like to be a pro. And that is the benefit of having guys like Jamal Crawford from your city that's giving back to the young guys and showing them the way. And so I think this team will become a household name, you know, as the years go and those guys continue to get better. And hopefully that game won't be slid into the schedule like it's always been. It's almost like it's not a priority and it makes it tough. And we've had a tough go here. And so it was good to get win last night. However, I got ejected 4 minutes into the game. Um.

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Just can't do it. Regardless of what was said, I'm not about to get into what was said because that's irrelevant. To Steph's point, I have to be on the floor and whatever that means, you just have to do that. I look at this, I'm not overreacting to this because of everything that happened in the beginning of the season. You know, I feel like since I've returned, everything's headed in the right direction and hit a little bump in the road, get over it and keep going. Extremely grateful that my guys guys held me down. It's a very important game for us and for them to go out and get a win. Trace played unbelievable basketball. Andrew Wiggins took over the game in the fourth quarter and Steph Curry sent everybody night-night as he does. Uh, Klay Thompson, um, tough back-to-back, man. You know, playing 30-plus minutes, starting for the first time in a long time at Miami, coming out, getting 28, then coming back the next night and giving us huge minutes, knocking shots down, spacing the floor. Klay got off to a really good start. Which got us going, got us out running, hit some shots, got out in transition, and that changed everything. I thought it was huge to see Klay back into the lineup. Not that BP did anything wrong. You know, sometimes you just need something different. And we all know what Klay brings to the table. What Klay brings to the table, nobody else brings to the table in the history of basketball. There's facts to back that up. Facts. You know, 60 and 3/4, 37 and a quarter. No one in history brings that to an NBA game. So with what Klay brings, it just brings a different thing. And we saw it shine through in a major way these last 2 games. And that's a big call from Steve Kerr, huge call from Steve Kerr. That's coaching at his finest right there. You talking—

Yeah.

Because when certain things like that happen, where Klay goes to the bench, right? That's a monumental move. Everybody's talking about it. First time in 12 years he's come off the bench, blah, blah, blah. When you do things like that, not that Steve stuck his foot in his mouth, but in theory, you kind of stick your foot in your mouth because now it's a big story. So then when you go back to it, it's like, oh, look at that. Like, and so many people would be afraid to go back to it just for that reason. And that's where I always say, like, Steve is unbothered by anything. Like, he's unfazed. So most coaches would be like, ah, but we went away from it. And now what are they going to say?

Baba.

They're going to pick this apart. Steve doesn't get off into— Steve is just going to make the best decision for the team at all times. And the beauty of that, we were talking Remember we were talking a couple episodes ago around Memphis and how you can follow your coach. The beauty in that is that is the unfazedness by Steve, the unbotheredness. That is that by Steve where it's just like, I'm unbothered by anything. I'm just standing these moments making these decisions. And that's just because he's never rattled by anything. That's all a product of that. And so I said, man, that's coaching. That's coaching at its finest. That's why Steve Curry is who he is. That's it. That's why he is the highest paid coach in NBA history. That's why he has 4 championships in, what was it? What is it, 4 championships in 10 years or something like that? Like that's why he is one of the most winningest people in basketball history. 4 championships as a coach, 5 as a player. One of the most winningest people in NBA history. That's why, because he's just unfazed. And a move like that jolt us and all of a sudden we, 2 games on this road trip, obviously like I said, the Minnesota one got away, but it sets us up to possibly have a 4-1 road trip if we go take, take advantage. And that's a huge trip coming off the home stand that we had and at this point in the season. So shout out to Stevie Kerr, big move getting Klay Thompson back in that game. And yeah, back to— Back to business. Getting kicked out the game. It just can't happen. I said what I said. I deserved to get kicked out at that point. And what I said, if I'm all the way honest with y'all, I kind of was trying to turn my body and angle and go to the bench. And I said what I said like a little too soon before angling my body to the bench. But yeah, it just can't happen. And you know, that like we need to win games. So. Like I said, not gonna overreact like, "Oh man." Like stuff is never as good as it seems. It's never as bad as it seems. Like I know where I am. I understand what I'm doing moving forward. And in my position, just make sure that that's the exception and not the rule. And so moving on. And like I said, shout out to my brothers for holding me down and getting that win. Need to go get a couple more wins. The wins were big because of the playoff race. Everyone's been blowing my phone up, so I must speak about this. Because of the playoff race, Tyree Easton had comments. Now, as you all know that are fans of this show, the Draymond Green Show, I am a big Tyree Easton fan.

Uh-huh.

Why would he come out and make a video telling the Warriors to come out and play? Everybody in Houston had a heart attack when he did that because that's just, Houston is a tough place to talk to us. You know, like when you look at Memphis and what happened with Memphis a couple years ago, like that Memphis was already a tough place to talk to us. Like when you lose to a team in the playoffs when it matters the most and like, especially at the height of like, whew, you know, with them Doves with like the height. When you lose it, like it's tough to talk to us because— Yeah. That's what matters. And so when you start talking, everybody just look back like, bro, you can't talk to them because of that. And so shout out to the young fella, um, you know, coming out to my Warriors, come out and play. Uh, we need to get him, and, you know, he got to come to the Bay and get in, get in sync better with that, uh, because it, you know, the, the chant just, it's a little more in sync than he was. But, um, Like I said, a part of the reason that I like Tari Eason is that he would come out and do that. Like, that's when I saw it, I wasn't surprised at all. I am a little surprised that he hasn't played in the game since January 1st. And so it's kind of tough to come out, you gotta come out and play and you not gonna play. It puts a lot of strain on your guys. You can't get out there and help them. But I respect it. I respect it. I mean, it's a big moment for their franchise. You know, they're on the, you know, on the trails of the play-in. It's a big moment for the franchise. So I get it. It's been a while. But I'm telling you, it's a lot of people in Houston city of Houston, which I love Houston by the way, it's a great city. Love the place. A lot of people there scratching their head like, come on, Tariq, we've seen this movie before. So I thought that was funny. Nothing more, nothing less. And that's why we rewinded. Now moving back to where we were headed, which is the Mind the Game. Like I said, those guys, JJ and Bron, they breaking down the game, they breaking down action. They having a high level basketball conversation that quite frankly, most people probably won't understand, but they're doing doing a good job of breaking it down to you. And I saw them, uh, talking about our split cuts. Uh, when Steve introduced this concept of the split cuts, um, it took a while to build the chemistry on it because it's a feel thing. And so, like, it's all read and react. If I do this and they do that, then you do this. And if they do that, then you move. And it's, it's, it's, it's like a quarterback reading, like, You got your first read, you got your second read, you got your third read, you got your fourth read. The interesting thing about it is like it layers and layers and layers. And as time has went on, we've just layered the split cut more and more. It started as just a pin in, guy come off, guy die. There's so many other layers to the split cuts now because it like, again, it's like a progression of a quarterback. Like you've read your— All right, next guy, next guy up. You see sometimes like a quarterback come to go across the field scanning their progressions, come all the way back. Like that's like the split cut, which is why I enjoy being the passer in the split cut because it's just fun. Like you're watching everything develop from the lowest point of the floor. Like you're lower than just about everybody. And now at times you got that guy on the weak side, which Brian was talking about KD, where you can skip to the weak side shooter. But you always want that guy to lift some to give you that angle to pass it. So. Yeah. In theory, you are the lowest guy on the floor. And if you think about that from a defensive perspective, the lowest guy on the floor is the most important guy on the floor. Why? Because he's the back line of the defense. He sees everything. And so in the split cut, I'm the lowest guy on the floor when I'm the passer. I can see everything develop. And sometimes you just see the breakdown happening. You like, okay, okay. I'm about to get him up. Boop. Got him. There it goes. And you know, that's been a staple.

Yeah.

In our offense since Steve Kerr came 10 years ago. And like I said, when he first put the split cuts in, it was one of those things. It goes back to the ball movement that he incorporated in our offense, which was like, yo Steve, you gotta keep passing the ball, but like Stephen Clay's supposed to get a lot of shots. And I remember very clearly him saying, the guys who's supposed to get the shots, the ball's gonna find them. And we all like, man, going with that Steve, man, that ain't gonna work. What you talking about? And sure enough, we started to pick that offense up over the first couple weeks and you like, man, the ball really finds Steph and Klay. Like it was very interesting. And the split cuts were kind of the same thing. Like I said, it's just been layer of building. And to Bron's point, when KD came, I don't even think it was necessarily about putting a shooter on that weak side because number one, KD is far more than just a shooter. KD scores that basketball. Yeah. But that definitely makes a difference. But even if you don't have a shooter on that weak side, we also came up with another couple things that even if it wasn't a shooter on that weak side, you could still skip it to that guy and move on to the next action. And so that's, again, that's the layers of it. And there's plenty of layers to it. But yeah, nah, Bron caught a lot of hell with them split cuts over the years. You know, Bron liked to play quarterback. And to his point, he's like, you gotta watch his eyes. Sometimes you gotta look Bron off a little bit and boom. And it's always fun with that, having that chess match with Bron because he is like Ed Reed over there, best free safety ever. I can't really, I feel like I'm an incredible free safety myself, but Bron is a great free safety and obviously he reads the game as well as anyone. And he's over there, he's always trying to get to the backside of that split and put himself in the help. But there's ways to, there's been ways to manipulate Bron too in the backside because you know he's trying to read it all. So it gets interesting. But the split cuts are a staple. They're tough to guard. And like I said, one of the reasons that it's toughest thing to guard is because it's just a read and react thing. Like, so you can't quite script it. Like in the NBA defense, you script what you want to give up. You know, you like, we're taking this away, this, this, this, and this. But the reality is the NBA, so you can't take away everything. So you have to choose like, all right, if we're gonna lose to them, we're willing to die by this. And sometimes teams kill you with that, but more often than not, you're gonna win if you execute that plan. And with the split cuts, you can discuss what the patterns are, but at the end of the day, once it start happening, it's still on your players to read the situation and react to what's happening. And as they're reading, It's a lot of moving pieces coming around and they're trying to make those reads and it gets tough. And so yeah, it was cool to see Bron and JJ discuss the splits, knowing the hell that it's caused Bron over the years. Although I'm like Tyrese and now they beat us in the playoffs last year. So maybe I shouldn't talk. Nah, nah, that go, that battle go too far back. That ain't stopping with one playoff loss.

But yeah.

So shout out to them. With that, you know, me looking at the NBA, I think when I think of the toughest actions to guard in the NBA, what would they be? Anytime you put somebody in a single side tag situation, that's always tough. That would be like if, say if I'm Steph and I'm on the left side of the floor, you got Draymond Green rolling in to set a screen. And he's diving, Steph's coming off to his right hand, and you got Klay on the same side of the floor that the screen is now going away from, which means that puts Klay's man in a single side tag position. Single side meaning there's one guy over there, so you don't have another guy to X out in what we call. So if it's two guys on that side, if one guy go help, the one guy has to drop a bit and take the first pass out and play two. If you put a guy on a single side, there's no X. So you have to make that guy go tag the roller. So it would be me rolling or Trace rolling or JK rolling or somebody rolling. You have that, that guy is put in a situation where he has to go tag the roller, meaning go in and bump the roller. So ideally you want him to start in. 'Cause you start in, it's a one-way closeout, meaning I start there, I get my bump, I start to exit as I get my bump. That makes your closeout shorter. The reality is you put a guy like Klay Thompson on the weak side and you're not starting in because you scared as hell to leave his body. And so that's single side tag. To me, that's always one of the toughest actions to guard because you just put that guy in the blender and he gotta figure out how I can get this tag and get back to the shooter. And if it's Klay Thompson who only need that much space to get a shot off, it makes it tough on that single side tag. And then you just, you kind of play, with Klay, you move him up and down, you know, higher up in the slot, you know, on the wing, to the corner. Like, you move that guy based on where you want the tag to be or not to be to make that tag tougher and a longer closeout. So to me, I think that's always gonna be one of the toughest actions to guard just because it's no help. And you put guys in a 2-on-1 situation in the NBA, the 2-on-1 should win out more often than not. And so I think for me, that's one that I would look at and I would say are one of the toughest actions to guard. But yeah, that was from Mind the Game, episode 2. I'm gonna toss it to Jackson for a mailbag segment before we get outta here and I head on, make our way to Charlotte. All right, let's start with from @JakeSteak. Caitlin Clark was offered $5 million from Ice Cube to join the Big 3 over the summer. Do you think she should take that? I mean, it depends on what the goals are, right? Like Caitlin Clark is gonna make plenty of money. So there's no need to money grab. What's the downside of that? The downside of that is Caitlin Clark gonna play in the Big 3 and those guys in the Big 3, like it's not, like, sorry, basketball players in the Big 3. It's guys that's played in the NBA. It's guys that are still actively playing overseas. Like, these guys getting to it in the Big 3. If Caitlin Clark doesn't perform well due to that, then what's the conversation? And so I think it does more harm than good for Caitlin Clark. I think it'd be groundbreaking for Ice Cube to get her in the Big 3. I think there's a 0% chance that it happens because— Yeah. Kaitlin Clark would need percentage of the league because that's the only way it can make, like, it only makes sense if, if like the amount of money that she can make grows and like you can't put a cap to it. But for her just to take $5 million to do what comes with that, it just doesn't make sense. That also falls during the NBA season, WNBA season. So how is she gonna play? So logistically it just doesn't make sense. So does she opt outta the WNBA and go play in the Big 3? Maybe one day the Big 3 reaches that point. I don't think it quite makes sense right now unless you make that a financial thing where she can make a bunch of money. But $5 million unfortunately is just not enough. Uh, it doesn't make sense. And I'm sure whoever is behind Caitlin Clark is thinking about building a brand, not grab some money. You're looking to grab some money and you're Caitlin Clark. Caitlin Clark should fire you today. If you're representing Caitlin Clark and you like, hey Caitlin, by the way, I got this. Caitlin Clark probably should fire you for bringing that idea to her because you shouldn't even put that idea in front of Caitlin Clark's face. The amount of money that Caitlin Clark has made and is going to make makes no sense for her to risk that. And I'm a big Ice Cube fan and wanna see the league do well, but just giving you the truth as you know you're gonna get on the Draymond Green show. That make just not enough money for Caitlin Clark. The risk isn't worth the reward. And Caitlin Clark is growing the WNBA and the women's game. And the only way Caitlin Clark can continue to grow the women's game is to go play in the WNBA, not play in the Big 3. So that's my spill on that. All right, next question from @Samel. The league needs more Draymond Green type of players.

All this friendly stuff isn't good for the game.

It takes away the competitiveness.

What are your thoughts on that?

Uh, I mean, I'm never going to argue what you're saying, the league need more me, but in saying that, I think the game is very competitive. I think regardless of guys are friends or not, you're going to compete. Like, I always go back to Bron. Me and Bron are great friends. I want to take his head off every time we play. Like that's just the reality. He wanna take my head off. It's not literal. Like meaning I wanna do whatever I gotta do to win. He wants to do whatever he gotta do to win. Doesn't affect our friendship. Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley was friends in the '90s. Like guys were friends. They golfed together before games. There's just this logic of friendships just started in the NBA. Stop. Like you just see them on social media more. Those guys didn't have social media. You didn't know their lives. You get to see more of our lives. So you think, and then the older guys fall into the trap of like, "Oh, they friends." Like, y'all been friends too, man. Like you don't just play in this league and not pick up friends along the way. Like it doesn't make sense. So yeah, guys been friends in the NBA and they've been competing forever. And guess what? Guys gonna continue to be friends in the NBA and you're gonna continue to compete and that ain't changing anything. So I don't think it's the friends, friendships. Yeah. That are stopping physical play in the NBA. What stops more physical play in the NBA are the rules. Rules are rules. That's what stops physicality in the NBA. It's not that, oh man, Jason Tatum, my friend. It's my little bro, of course. Guess what? When we played in the NBA Finals, I didn't say hi to him the whole time. He didn't say hi to me the whole Finals. And then after we hugged, what's up bro? I miss you. Dang, it was bothering me not talking to you. Like, it's my brother. Yes, great. Guess what? Did that change anything with how I went at him? How he went at me? How Boston friends treated me because me and Jay— No, it didn't change anything. So the whole theory just doesn't make sense. If anything, I wanna beat you more. Because guess what? JT is gonna be at my wedding that summer. And I'd rather be the champion walking into my wedding than JT being the champion walk. Like, you got all of these things that go on in our minds. That's not stopping no competition. So— Yeah. People gotta stop with that. That changes nothing. What changes physicality in the NBA are simply the rules. That's a great answer. Before we get to the last question, reminder for everyone to subscribe to our YouTube channel. We got a couple very, very cool interviews coming up.

But to close out, let's go from @JJ6ix. Draymond, do you think that you are misunderstood?

Do I think I'm misunderstood? Of course. But so is everyone else that the world judges and don't know. You know, so I don't look at myself like, "Oh, y'all misunderstood this of me." And like, "Look at me, I'm misunderstood." Like Steph Curry's misunderstood simply because you don't know him. LeBron James is misunderstood simply because you don't know him. So the reality is with the jobs that we do, we're in front of a camera all the time. There's always something going on. There's always talk around us. There's all of these things. And so it's in your face. When something is always in your face, it's only a natural thing to feel like you know it, you know them, you know. And the reality is you don't. You see what you see and that's it. There's an entirely different and other layers to that person than what you get the opportunity to see. So am I misunderstood? Absolutely. But so is just about every other guy in the NBA. I don't take that as, man, they're picking on me and I'm misunderstood or anything like that. We're all misunderstood simply because our lives are on display in a very small way, but in people's face, you see it all the time. So in your mind, it's just like, that's our life and that's what's on display to you. But the reality is it's not. And it's— and basketball is not the only thing in any of our lives. So the reality is we're all misunderstood.

Yeah.

That is gonna be a wrap from this episode of the Draymond Green Show. Appreciate the questions. Next time we go live, there will continue to be mailbag segments. Got another couple, another episode dropping next week. That'll be a fun one. It'll be a great one. Owner of an NBA team coming through the Draymond Green Show. Make sure y'all check that out. Until next time. That's a wrap.

Peace.

Peace.