In this episode of the Draymond Green Show, Draymond interviews veteran guard Lou Williams about the pivotal moment when Doc Rivers convinced him to join the Los Angeles Clippers instead of retiring. Lou recounts his chaotic trade history—moving from the Lakers to Houston and then to the Clippers within six months—and how he felt undervalued and ready to quit. Doc’s direct conversation, challenging Lou’s energy and commitment, led to a reset and a renewed belief that the Clippers would be his "home." The partnership with Montrezl Harrell blossomed into one of the league’s most lethal combos, fueling a career resurgence that Lou describes as his best run. Both discuss the team’s mindset—playing free, happy, and embracing a chip‑on‑the‑shoulder mentality—while Draymond reflects on the strategic differences between his Golden State Warriors experience and the Clippers’ style. A brief Hennessy sponsorship read appears, but the core of the episode centers on Lou’s near‑retirement, Doc’s influence, and the cultural shift that sparked a late‑career renaissance.
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What's up everybody? It's Draymond Green. Make sure you subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel below so you don't miss any more of this great content going forward. You go there, you reestablish your career, you get traded to the Clippers. How influential was Doc to you then going on to win those next two? 'Cause I felt like, and this, you know, I felt like in 2016, Steph and I were the deadliest combination in the NBA. And it was based on Steph coming off a pick and roll. And if you step up, if you low, he hitting the shot, as we all know. If I roll and I get into that pocket, at that time, it was lights out for everybody.
He talking about at that time, like you ain't just win the chip again.
Well. We gotta do it a little differently now. They guard us differently now. But at that time, if I got in the pocket—
But at this point, y'all have mastered it though. Yeah, it's clockwork now. The one thing that, yeah, the one thing I appreciate about y'all, when I watch y'all play, I watch y'all go option A, option B, option C, option D. All right, fuck it, let's figure it out.
Absolutely.
It's protocol with y'all, man. I respect that about y'all, it's protocol.
I appreciate that. But on the flip side of that, I thought you and Montrezl Harrell became like one of the most deadly combinations in the NBA. And I thought for y'all to build that chemistry, for Doc to find those two pieces, I thought that was huge. How do you feel about Doc and what he brought to your career once you then went to the Clippers?
So let me tell you that time in my career. So the first time I thought I was gonna retire, was going into Toronto. The second time I thought I was gonna retire is when I got traded to the Clippers. 'Cause a lot of people don't realize that was the third team in 6 months for me.
Wow. It was Houston too, right?
Yeah, see, I was with the Lakers. But the Lakers told me they was gonna trade me. They was like, "We wasting your time. We gonna get you outta here." So they traded me to Houston over the All-Star break. I finished the season with Houston and Houston traded me in the off-season. So I'm looking like, I'm not holding value anywhere. You know what I'm saying?
Absolutely.
These teams not looking at me as a valuable piece. So it might be, I think this is year 13, 14, like going into my 14th year. So I'm like, you know, this good run. You know what I'm saying? Like, tilt your hat off, you had a good run.
That part.
And if you ever look back at the press conference, I'm there, I'm frowning, I don't wanna be there, I'm holding the jersey, and literally it's a video out there. Soon as they done taking pictures, I put the jersey down, walk off the stage and leave.
Walk off.
So Doc called me, he like, "Yo, you left yet?" I said, "I'm on my way to the airport." He like, "Turn around, I need to talk to you." So I turn around, go back to the gym. He like, "What's up with you?" I'm like, "What you mean?" He like, "Your energy, like, I ain't really feeling it." If you know Doc, he don't hold no punches. He like, "Yo, I ain't feeling it." Like, "You don't wanna be here?" I said, "I don't." I said, "Bro, I done got traded twice in 6 months." I was like, "No, y'all weren't on my radar. I wasn't a big Clippers fan." Like, I don't know. They having all this turmoil in the media with Doc and DJ and Blake and all of that, with Chris. Like, bro, I don't wanna be a part of this. You know what I'm saying? So he like, look, we reset and we re-energizing. I don't know what else I need to tell you, but this is gonna be your home and I'm gonna allow you to be yourself and we gonna do something special here. And that was, Doc told me that day one. And for whatever reason, I believed him. [LAUGHTER] For whatever reason, I bought in. I bought in, and my Clippers run is by far the best I felt playing basketball in my entire career.
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For sure.
And there were times —there were times during that run where you were number 1 on the scouting report. Nah, it was a good run. And to go from number 1, it was unprecedented because it's like you're 14, 15, 16. It's like you were getting better.
Yeah, it was Benjamin Button. They was calling me Benjamin Button.
And it was a very weird thing because you kept getting in that space of like, all right, they got Lil' Will, but he gotta be slowing down now. They got Lou Will, he gotta be slowing down now. And it's like, you kept getting better. And it got to a point to where I know when you had 50 on us, you were the guy on the team. And that then led you to a different stratosphere of NBA players. And I always say, people can think what they want, media can think what they want, but how your counterparts feel about you, how the guys that's in the league feel about you, that's the shit that really matters. And it got to the point to where then it's like guys looking at you like, "Oh, that's Lou team." Like you leading the charge of that offense. What was that like for you going from 14 years of just being one of the guys to like now, like this is actually my team.
Yeah, like I said, it was one of the greatest runs of my career because We had the idea that we knew everybody's position. We knew everybody's job. So I wasn't shy about saying, "I got it." Because my teammates, they were comfortable with me saying it and they was giving me the tools to go do it. Like Pat Bev, you know, our bond began in that Clippers because, you know, he just, he saw how I was carrying myself. You know, once we traded, I think once we traded Blake, Everybody was down. We weren't sure how it was gonna go. And I sat everybody down. I said, "Look, man, they traded Blake. We love Blake. So we don't have to feel responsible for that. Only thing we can do is play as hard as we can, give ourselves an opportunity to win, and live with the results. And whatever happened, it happened. Don't put the pressure on us to have to fix that." And that was the mindset that we took. And we went out and we just played fun. We played free, we played happy every night. And we put this, we created our own chip on our shoulder. Like everybody was against us when nobody was. We weren't on nobody's radar, but we tricked ourselves into thinking like, "Oh, oh, y'all don't think we could still compete?" And that's why our mentality was so strong. I think that's why those years were so strong. Yeah. While we gave a lot of people problems, I wish we'd have kept that team together and tried to get some things done, but you know how the business go. But like I said, that was just, that's just a special time in my career, bro.
