Draymond Green reflects on NBA suspension, Steph Curry & Adam Silver conversations, Warriors return

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What's up everybody? Welcome back to the Draymond Green Show. This is actually our first episode of the year since July. Um, and it's been a long time coming. Um, I re-signed with The Volume, which I am extremely excited about our partnership, this partnership that we started 2 and a half years ago. As I said, this is our first show. There's no surprise in what has been going on with me this year. And I want to talk about those things. Number one, in coming back and working my way back from the indefinite suspension, that I've been serving. I'll start from the beginning and just kind of walk you through my process. I know everyone's had their questions about what that process is. I know everyone has had their answers on what that process is. And I just wanna lift up the curtain and let you in on that process. As I think for me in my life, I know it's been a very important one. Mm-hmm. And as you know, I'm not one to shy away from letting you guys in on these things. For starters, let's go back to December 12th. That date will be ingrained in my mind for a while. Let's go back to December 12th in Phoenix, Arizona, playing against the Phoenix Suns, third quarter. And I connect with Nurkic, get kicked outta the game, do my post-game interview, all of those things. And as I said then, and I'll say now, I was wrong. I was wrong regardless of what I was trying to do, regardless of, like, none of that shit matters.

I was wrong.

I accept my fault in that. And I apologize, not only from that Rudy Gobert situation. I was wrong, went way too far. I am a guy who plays on the edge. I am a guy who walks right up to that line and I have no problem with admitting I have walked over that line. And for that, I apologize. I apologize to— my family as they had to endure some things that, as a leader of a family, you have to lead when it's good, you have to lead when it's bad. And that's as a leader of anything. Very hard to lead when you've created the bad. And in doing that, in creating the bad, I am someone that's created so much good for my family. And you enjoy those times, you like appreciate those times, you smile and you laugh through those times. I created bad for my family. And for that, I apologize.

Brings pain.

I have a wife, I have children, I have parents, I have grandparents, siblings, friends that I embarrassed.

And it hurts.

It hurts. Mm-hmm. You know, my mom experienced death threats. My children, I have two children that are of school age, and so they have to go to school. They go to school in the Bay Area. Most of their friends are Warriors fans, you know, or their parents are Warriors fans. And so my children has had to live with that. Joe Lacob made a commitment to me this past summer for the next 4 years. And the conversations that we've had, we had in leading up to that, I failed miserably. And I apologize for that. The Golden State Warriors organization, I always say like, that's my baby. Like Steph, Klay, Steve, Bob, like we've been there from the beginning of what, you know, the Warriors as today.

And I failed them miserably.

And that, you know, I've heard some, so oftentimes you, In what we do, you try your hardest to block out the noise. You try your best to not log on to this thing or not go on to that thing, not go watch this TV station. Because at times it can be very, very, very overbearing on top of what's already a very stressful life and a very stressful job. And this time I did the opposite.

I dove all the way into all of it. So everything that everyone has said, I mean, it's impossible to hear everything because it's so much, but I've heard a great deal of what everyone has said and.

And normally I'd wanna say, "F you," or, "Watch me show you," or, "I'ma take that, I'ma bottle all of it up, and I'm going to use it to make sure I can throw it back in your face." And if I'm honest, that fuel has driven me So far, and being able to bottle those things up has driven me to who you know today. The reason you know the name Draymond Green, and I wouldn't say in large part because there's a lot that go into it, but a part of that is that fuel of grabbing all of those things and saying, "Now watch what I do to you with the fuel that you've given me." And this time was different for me.

I watched him and I listened. So I took you back to December 12th, and now I'll say we're at December 14th.

I sat in my man cave for 2 days and just sat there. Mm. My kids didn't know I was home. Only person really knew I was home was my wife. And my daughter, my 3-year-old, she FaceTimed me and she said, "Daddy, you in the man cave?" I said, "I am." And she just dropped the phone and came running back there and pulled me out.

Pulled me out into the yard and we played.

And I'm not sure how much longer I would have sat back there, but I know it wouldn't have been the 14.

And it was special because I was just sitting back there in the dark listening to what everyone had to say.

Mm-hmm.

And although I didn't stop listening that day, I realized that I had to move forward that day.

And also on that day, Coach Kerr came to visit me after shootaround.

And we sat in the yard, he cried, I cried. Because there's a bond there that seen it all, seen the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows. And he just said to me, I want you to end this the right way. I want us to end this the right way.

"and you're not doing that right now.

So I want you to do what you have to do to get in the space to where you can do that and that we can do that." And he said to me, Your press conference the other day, I was happy, I was proud of it.

"Draymond, it was so much better than your other ones." He said, "You took accountability, you apologized." And I thought, wow, Draymond's moving in the right direction. He said, "Because you've apologized before." But there's always a but.

Or maybe you kind of apologize and there's a but.

He said, "No buts." And I started laughing and he said, "What?" I said, "My wife told me that last night. She told me last night, whenever you are ready to move forward, whenever you're ready to speak, whenever you're ready to apologize, to do whatever you need to do. I've heard you apologize and obviously I've spoke to you, so I know you're willing to apologize, but no buts. No buts.

And I said to Steve, Coach Kerr, I said, Hazel told me the same thing.

That's why I laugh, because it's so true.

I said, and I'll get to explaining, you know, you go through these things and you start explaining maybe what you were thinking or— and it comes off as like, but this, but that.

And so I told both of them, Whenever I do speak, there won't be a but.

I let the Warriors organization down.

I let the NBA down. My family, myself, my partners.

I've always been one that said, Your responsibility is what you make of it. Just because you're in this position don't mean you have the responsibility they say you have.

And a part of me still believe that.

Mm-hmm. But in going through what I've gone through, one thing that I do realize is the responsibility is much greater than I realized. And so I said that to say the responsibility that's been placed upon me as a father, as a husband, as a podcaster, as a business owner, as a television personality, as a Black man in America. I—

I've handled it miserably, terribly.

And in sitting through those first days and just listening, I heard so many people say, "He need help." And as I sat and listened to those people, quite naturally, the ones that I saw saying I needed help, I'm like, "Who said that?

This person said that?" No way this person said that.

But you go through stages of understanding things. You go through stages of how you may feel. You go through stages of thoughts. And so my initial thought was—

I'm sorry. He said that? And what I realized is you're headed back down the same path you've been allowing yourself to go down with that mindset.

And so, I made a commitment to myself, to the Warriors organization, to the NBA, to my family, to the volume, to all of my partners that I'm gonna listen to what they say. I'm going to make my own decision, but what do I want to do about that?

And so I made a commitment in those days to be a champion of change. What does that mean?

Draymond, what are you talking about? What does that mean? That means accepting that there's a place for growth.

Accepting that you fucked up and you were wrong.

So as opposed to listening to what these people are— as opposed to listening to how these people are saying things, let's listen to what they're saying, and then you do whatever you want to do with the information. And I'll tell you, it really pissed me off when Kevin Durant said, "He wasn't like that when I was around.

I hope he get the help he needs." And I start going into this deep dive of like, how this, how that.

But then it's like, wait a minute, what do you want the world to know about you?

And so I sat with myself and thought about that.

And I'm like, interestingly enough, the world still thinks I'm the same Draymond as I was in 2017. And the reality is, is I'm not. I'm not even close to the same Draymond that I was in 2017. But I quite frankly have not allowed anyone in the world to see that growth, to see that change. And I've had my reasons why. Again, we live a very public life and sometimes you just want to try to cut that off. And what I realized in that moment is in me cutting that off, I have not allowed myself to be vulnerable when it's okay to be vulnerable. I not have, I have not allowed myself to grow in certain areas that quite frankly I need to grow. And even if I have grown in those areas, I definitely haven't showed it. And so then I went back to Kevin Durant's statement and I said, Why?

He said he was not like that. And so as I sat with myself, I said, I think it's time that the world get to know me, who I am.

And if I can look at Kevin's statement the right way, through the right mindset, through the right lens, He's acknowledging essentially what I want the world to know about me. And then he spoke about help.

And I'm like, how he gonna say I need help?

And when I went back through it with another lens, I was like, I need help. Maybe you shouldn't hear help so negatively. Like, maybe you're listening to the word help with the same mindset that the word help meant when you were 15 years old. So maybe you shouldn't hear that negatively, so negatively, And maybe he's not saying that as negatively as you're taking it. And even if he was, I made a decision in that moment that I wasn't gonna take it that way.

And for me, it was a very proud moment for me.

Yeah.

Because I said, you're ready for growth.

That's a step in the right direction. And I am one who celebrates small wins. Like I don't, I used to take wins for granted. I celebrate small wins. And so for me, that was something to talk to those that are very close to me about, like, hey, I feel like I had a breakthrough, like, and just a small breakthrough in my mindset because I was able to look at this differently and bottle it up differently and package it differently. I feel like that's a breakthrough for me.

Let me build on that.

And Once I did that, I felt, okay, now I can start to put together what I think this process should look like. Now I can start to put together the areas of growth that I really truly believe that I need to grow in. Because in sitting and listening to those things, what I also realized is people can say anything, people can say what they want, But unless you're in a space of saying, I need to grow here, here, and here, it never works. And so I said, okay, that's definitely one area that I need to grow.

Great.

And then I'm able to start putting these pieces together of the areas that I need to grow and start along my journey of growing. Not taking things so negatively. Not looking at the word help from the mindset of a 15-year-old Draymond.

Because Draymond at 15 had no resources. So to hear the word help, in Saginaw, Michigan with no resources.

It's a very foreign thing. And then you hear how much people shit on it and you move yourself as far away from it as you can. And I realized what's the point of having all the resources if you're not gonna use 'em? It is immature. It is quite frankly stupid. And if you know anything about me, one of my biggest pet peeves is for somebody to take me for stupid.

It's very stupid. And so I started to talk to some different people that I trust and started to lay out a plan. And trust me, what's it been since December 12th?

3 weeks, 3 and a half weeks. I am still the same Draymond you knew before.

You don't just change the spots on the leopard.

But what I do realize are there are some things that I can leave behind.

The antics I can leave behind.

And it's okay. That won't change the Draymond that the world has gotten to know. That won't change the way I play the game of basketball. Yeah. Stop taking the excuse and running with it and saying, I can't play the way I play if I don't do this.

Eh, that's not true.

And so I'm no longer going to use the excuse. And so as I started off, I was going to walk you through my journey. I had a conversation with Adam. Yeah.

Silver, commissioner of our league. And I just told him, "Adam, it's too much for me. Like, it's too much. Like, this is too much.

It's all becoming too much for me and I'm gonna retire." And Adam said, "Ah, you're making a very rash decision." "and I won't let you do that." And I'm like, "No, Adam, like, not really sure it's a rash decision.

It's just all too much." And, you know, we had a long, great conversation, very helpful. To me, very thankful to play in a league with a commissioner like Adam, who's more about helping you than hurting you, or helping you than punishing you, or, you know, he's more about the players.

And so I'm very lucky to have or to be in a position to be under the guidance of an Adam Silver, of a Joe Dumars, of someone who's been really close to me, hand in hand throughout as I've been walking through this, Bob Myers. And for the first 5, 7 days of this thing, I talked to him 2 times a day. Mm-hmm. And I've always said like, Bob is, our relationship go far past him being our general manager. And I said that when he was our general manager.

And like going through things like this shows what it means to be a true friend. I only hope to be as good of a friend as he is to me.

Man, when I first talked to Adam, Adam was like, "Bob's called me so many times. Like, Bob's called me a million times. I keep talking to Bob." And it's just like, this dude is like, he just cares so much.

Like, Bob's working ESPN and home with his family.

What does he care?

So thankful.

Again, it's not oftentimes in life that you have people like that in your corner. Steve, Mike Dunleavy, the amount of people that's reached out to me during this, current players, past players, GMs, coaches, owners.

Yeah. Was one of the things that really made me think, wow, you can't just run.

You can't just like say this is it and run into retirement. There's actually people that care. But you walk through this journey and you're not really sure how many people really do care. Sometimes you can feel alone.

"It's okay for it to be too much." But it really just brought me to a space of, no, you can't just run.

Do what it is that you need to do and figure it out and do it the right way. And so I'm very thankful.

Mm-hmm.

And I won't mention everybody by name, but you all know who you are. I'm very thankful.

Family, friends. I'm grateful.

I am grateful for the time that I've had to grow.

Mm-hmm.

And again, I'm not gonna sit here and act like, oh man, like this guy's a totally different person in 3 and a half weeks. Never gonna be that guy. But in 3 weeks, a lot can happen. And a lot for me has happened. I came to some, Some spaces. And going through this, I totally put my phone down. Not texting, not on the phone, not having to worry of whatever it is that the outside world bring. And I've been home with my family. And it's funny because It brought me to a realization of I became a husband as an NBA player. I became a father as an NBA player and everything around and in between as an NBA player.

How much did, my schedule's been the same for the past 12 years.

Yeah, you tweak something here, you tweak something there, Overall, the schedule has been the same. And in putting my phone down and being so present with my family and being so present in those moments, I'm missing texts, I'm missing calls. And I realized I had no time to talk on the phone.

I had no time to text.

But the busiest part of my life was removed. How is it that I have no time now? And it was a very eye-opening experience for me because it made me realize, or just open my eyes to what are your priorities? What do you prioritize? Mm-hmm.

Where can you be better?

You think you're giving X amount of time to this or X amount of focus to this, but are you really? And so, as I said, 3.5 weeks don't change the spots on the leopard.

Not saying that.

I'm not saying that. But what I also understand is I also don't need the spots on me changed.

What I need is to grow. And I've embraced that growth.

And no, the growth don't end now. The growth is just beginning. But I'm embracing the growth. I'm embracing this, I'm embracing every moment of it. And I can't necessarily say I've always done that. I can't even necessarily say I've always felt the need to do that. I'm so thankful to the organization for this time. I know everybody's like, "Oh, he hasn't been around the team." So great for me, so great for the team. Mm-hmm.

Incredible. Because I'll be better from it in all facets of my life. And that I'm excited about.

I would always talk, you know, we have these Business of Basketball meetings and we have meetings, we have so many meetings that you all would never know.

Aside from like film, like therapists come and talk, sports psychologists come and talk.

Like you have security meet, you have all these different meetings. But one in particular we'd have every year is like where, you know, every NBA team has a therapist and a sports psychologist that you can use, it's your choice. And we'd be in those meetings and I'd always tell guys in those meetings like, yo, I want, like, I think I need therapy. And not for the reasons that everyone would think you need therapy. And I have childhood traumas, I have this thing, like, and I would tell our, say to our team and at meetings, I'd be very outspoken about it, but I say, yo, I need therapy, I'm so afraid. I'm so afraid though, because the things that you may uncover, I'm not sure I'm in a space to handle them.

I'm so afraid, but one day I'm gonna do it.

And I tell the guy, I'm gonna do it though, one day. And I'll be honest, I didn't just start therapy with this.

Like, I've been in therapy before. And no pun intended, it's been so therapeutic to speak to someone that's not judging you.

I mean, that's my life being judged. To speak to someone that's not judging you, to freely speak, to work through things, what you end up realizing is you do most of the talking.

And sometimes you need to. And so I'm not gonna hide from that.

I'm not going to let the negative connotations, I'm not going to let how negatively I saw people speaking about me and throwing those things out there run me away. Mm-hmm.

I'mma champion it. I'mma champion the change.

And so again, no, this is not, oh, he went to some therapy and in 3 weeks he's great.

No, I still have a lot of things to work on, but I am enjoying that work.

And the work that I was so afraid to do, I'm happy this brought me to it. Because there's also things that you can go to and for therapy and not uncover, right? Like there's different things you can go to therapy about. And this helped me just dive in. Like just, just, just go all in. Mm-hmm.

Whatever comes of it comes of it.

I needed the push. I needed that push because it's something that I had wanted to do anyway. I just didn't have the balls to do it. And yes, I say the balls to do it because it's hard work.

Takes a lot.

It's exhausting work.

But it's rewarding. And so that's been my journey. For the first time in 16 years, since 2007, 17 years, I got to spend the holiday weeks with my family.

For the first time in 11 years, 10 years, 10, 11 years, I didn't walk in an arena on Christmas Day. And you sometimes, you just, you just don't realize. How much you may need that. And so as I said, I'm thankful for this time and not 'cause I didn't do anything wrong because I did. And for those of you out there that have faith, there are, you know about blessings in disguise. And I think this has been a blessing in disguise for me, for me to center myself, for me to recalibrate, for me to grow and for me to champion this change, be a champion of this change.

And no, I'm not gonna not mix things up on the court 'cause I love this game and I love to compete and you just don't get to turn that off. Draymond Green.

But I am also smart enough to know what an antic is and what is, and I can get rid of the antics. I'm more than capable of doing that.

I look forward to it.

One thing throughout this process that really hurt me, I turned on the TV screen and someone, Stephen A. was like, "Steph." Yeah.

Is a bad leader because Draymond did X.

And it pissed me off, but it crushed me. It crushed me because how is Steph enduring being a bad leader? Like, this guy doesn't give us anything to tear him down about. This guy does everything the right way, and yet he's being tore down because my actions crushed me. That was a tough one. This one, that was a tough blow.

To deal with. And because he got crushed publicly for that, I'm gonna apologize publicly.

I sincerely apologize to Steph for my actions.

Thank you.

'Cause that was a tough pill to swallow.

Very thankful for Steph. As I've been out on this time, talk every day, every other day, just checking in. He's like, "Yo, I'm gonna be right here with you through this." I'm proud of you. I'm gonna help you through this. And he's been very much so that all my teammates have reached out at different points too.

Like, yo, I'm just checking on you. How you doing? I'm thankful for those guys. CP, who you are, know.

We had our thing, as we've infamously talked about, checking in every day, every other day. Thankful for those guys. Um, Bron checking in.

"Yo, just want you to know we with you. We love you, Champ.

Like, we riding with you.

Do whatever you gotta do.

Know that we with you." Time is up. I told you all about putting my phone away.

And so by the time I'll get to my phone, it's 1:30, 2 o'clock. And me and Ish tried catching up for 10 days and couldn't. And then we finally got on the phone and we talked for an hour. And he's been texting me every day since, still.

And man, you don't get people like that in your corner, especially not no college coach.

And I know I've said this before, you don't get people like that. Yeah. I'm so thankful to have those people in my life and lucky to have those types of people in my corner. If you even just sent the text, like I could, I didn't even, I didn't, I still haven't gotten a chance to respond to all the texts because there were so many. Yeah.

But I thank you because it's special and it doesn't go unnoticed.

And it's like when the world is flipping on you, to know that those that's really in your corner are still standing there, I can't thank all of you enough. For the first few games of my suspension, I'd hide from my kids to watch the game because that's a tough conversation to have.

And I remember the first game that I watched with them or that they saw me watching, they were like, So confused, like, "Daddy, why you not?" I'm like, "Oh, you know, like, it's a tough conversation to have." But it's one that I had to have. And I grew through it. I've grown because of it. But that was tough.

I said I'd walk you through this journey. I didn't touch a basketball for a week.

10 days, just got away from everything.

And I'm like, you know what, let me get back on the court, let me start back working out.

And I did that and I've been doing that and I've had calls with Rich, my agent, the league office.

The Warriors organization on those calls.

That's been the process. And the process don't end today or tomorrow or the next day because it's something that I've decided.

Mm-hmm. You have turning points in life. You have turning points in careers. And I've decided for this to be a turning point for me. And so it's not something that ends today because if it's a turning point, you must keep going or you end up back there. And so I look forward to continuing to grow as a person. One of the reasons I consider quitting basketball is I'm like, the worst of me come out on the basketball court. Like the worst of me don't come out in my life. If you talk to anybody who's around me, I hardly talk. I know there's this common misconception like, "Draymond super outgoing. Draymond always has something to say." Draymond don't talk if he not comfortable.

I'll sit there and not say a word.

And I'm not gonna sit here and say, "Oh, I'm changing this, I'm changing that." I'm growing and I think it's time that I allow you to see the growth. I look forward to the opportunity. I'm thankful for the opportunity. Not many times do people get a second or third or fourth chance. But I get a chance to show my growth, and I'm thankful for that.

As I said, I'm not gonna sit here and say, this is the change and that's the change and this and that, 'cause it's not really about that for me.

It's simply about growing. It's simply about representing myself, representing the brands that I represent, what I stand for, my family.

It's about representing that the right way. I'm excited to get back with my teammates.

I'm excited to get back in the arena and do what I love to do because not every day do people, not every day do people get to do what they love to do.

And I wanna do all that I can to not fuck that up for me.

It's a very interesting time in my life also when this first happened, December 12th. I was closing this deal, like, for a nice amount of money.

And it was like some, video game or something.

And I hadn't signed the deal yet and they came back like, oh, we wanna lower the terms, we wanna do this, we want you to do more, we're gonna lower the money. And I was just like, ah, I'm okay, I'll pass. And, I'm very thankful to my partners in bringing you this podcast, The Volume, because also a deal that was not closed, that we have been working on for a year and a half.

Like we had actually been working on this deal for a year and a half. And ironically, this happens.

Right before the deal closes. After a year and a half of working on this deal, myself, Dana, working with the Volume team, Jamie, Colin, Logan, Jax. After a year and a half of working on a deal, this happens right before I signed the deal.

Yeah.

And you talk about seeing who's standing in your corner.

They stood right there. Like, no, we're here.

We're not going anywhere. By the way, I mean, you all saw the media press on December 13th, 14th. We actually met, we had a meeting scheduled December 13th. Like, oh, by the way, do you wanna announce right now that you re-signed with The Volume and this point in the deal and that point in the deal? You wanna announce these things right now because the press on you is so bad, we can put this out right now.

And just like, change it up a little bit. Obviously we didn't, which I think was best to not do it for multiple reasons. 'Cause number one, I needed to sit in that.

I needed to sit and listen to that. Mm-hmm. Not try to change it, not throw a bandaid over it because, hey, here's this great thing that Draymond has going on.

I'm happy we didn't. But to know that Jamie, Colin, Logan were willing to do it. Yeah.

Man, that's the stuff when you take a step back and you look and you like, those are the things that matters. Those are the people you wanna go in the foxhole with.

And so to my Volume family, I'm thankful to call you all a partner.

As I've said from the beginning, Working with The Volume has been special. To see the growth of the company over the last couple years has been special. I don't take that for granted. And I also don't take the support for granted.

Very thankful.

And we gonna continue to give you these episodes. Mwah!