Trae Young no longer needs "chip on his shoulder" | Draymond Green Show

When I introduced you, I talked about the chip on your shoulder being larger than life, larger than earth. As someone who came through this league and had to have a chip, second round pick, undersized, too fat to play this position, too slow to play that position, too small to play this position, I had to have that chip. And so when I watch you, I feel like I can understand you a lot more than most can because although you're a point guard, you're undersized when we start talking about the NBA. Talk to me about how important having that chip is and what it's done for you in your career coming this far.

Well, I mean, to be honest with you, I've been undersized my whole life. Like seeing like, I used to want to go play with my dad and like, he would go to the Y at like 6:30, 7:30 in the morning, go play pickup with the older guys. I'd be 12, 13-year-old and want to go play with those guys and just jump in and just play with the older guys. And so I've always played up, like even on my AU team before I got to high school, I was playing up against older guys. So I was always a smaller guy. So I'm kind of used to that type of thing. But as I started playing my age and it was—

Draymond Green.

Started to level out a little bit more, I was able to show my skills and be better. But I've always kind of like used that undersize that, I mean, you're too small to— your game to translate to the next level. It's kind of like a motivation, like you said, that chip on my shoulder. But I don't think about it too much anymore, but because I know who I am, you know what I'm saying? But I definitely remember as a kid being a smaller guy, being on the sidelines waiting for my dad's team to lose so I could try to get on his team on the next one. Like I just remember always playing up and being that smaller guy. So it ain't never been nothing new to me.

So that's interesting because I, what you just said, I try not, like I know who I am. I try not to really have that anymore. And I think that's a very interesting thing because, and I'll talk to you from my experience and I'm asking if yours is the same. So you come into this league an underdog, chip on your shoulder. I came in a little differently than you. I was the 35th pick. You was the 5th pick. So, but like I said, some of those similarities and the same things they were saying about me in a much different way about you. You use that chip every day to get you going, every day to push you past this guy. I want to destroy this guy in front of me. You use that chip on your shoulder. And while you're climbing up, everybody love it. Everybody's like, "Oh man, you see him? He has passion." Mm-hmm. You know, "He don't take no shit from nobody." This, then that thing. And everybody applaud it. And then when you, and what it seems like to me, once you get to a space of you've had success as far as accolades, All-Star, All-NBA, But most importantly, as we all know, people in the world, when they talk success, they judge success by money. And so then you get the max contract, and all of a sudden they don't really accept that chip anymore because they're now looking at you like, wait, you, you're not an underdog, you making $200 million. Like, what you mean you're an underdog? And so now that very thing that helped you succeed, they're now trying to use against you. Has that been your experience? And if it has, how have you tried to adjust to that?

That's definitely, I mean, that's definitely been my experiences from looking at it, from like what it is. But like, it's like that weird saying, like with Spider-Man, like with great power comes great responsibilities. I think me getting that max contract came with a lot of responsibilities. And like, for me, that's how I look at it. Like, no matter what other— what someone else says about me or what they expect for me to do for myself or for my team, like, nobody has higher expectations than me, you know what I'm saying, of myself and for my team. So whether I get the All-Stars or All-NBAs or whatever, or— I mean, like, I did get the max. Like, my mindset never changed. Like, I want more, you know what I'm saying? And I know once I get that, what came with it, you know what I'm saying? The more scrutiny, the more the expectations rise, you know what I'm saying? When you get that type of stuff. So I understand that and I accept it, you know what I'm saying? Like, I feel like if you're in my position, you have to either accept it or just turn it down, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause when you get it, it all comes with it. So I've had to learn to really just accept it and then try to move each day I mean the right way. So I just had to accept it for real.

With being the face of the franchise as you are, I mean, you've been a face of franchise since you walked into the NBA, which is a tough thing. Most people have a chance to grow to that. You know, you've been that from the beginning. Talk to me about some of the difficulties of that. 'Cause I think people just look at it and they think, you know, it's just basketball. Like how you perform at 7:00 PM on Tuesday night, on Thursday night, Friday night. People have this idea in their mind of, oh, that's what a face of a franchise is. Talk to me about the difficulties of being the face of a franchise that most people don't even have a clue comes with that.

I mean, for me being like the face of the franchise, It's like, it was a lot tougher for me coming into the league, obviously being 19. When you're young, you're that face of franchise. You don't necessarily know everything. And if you don't have a vet around you that's really putting that into your ear and how you need to move, how you need to talk to your teammates, communicate with your teammates, spend time with them, because that stuff goes a long way. And I feel like for me, I was able to learn, thankfully, through a situation where we, I mean, we were rebuilding and so we weren't really expected to win. So it was a place for me I can go and I can really learn through the, through the thick of things and playing through games and stuff like that. So I just, I think people don't understand when you're 19, you come in, you're leading, trying to lead grown men, you 30-year-olds, 28-year-olds who have family, kids, you playing video games in your dorm room all year, your freshman year of college. You just all of a sudden now you got to go spend time at dinners and nice dinners and all these things with these dudes, it's like, it's an adjustment period. And so for me, like, thankfully I was able to go through that adjustment period early on rather than now. And now I'm still relatively young and I'm able to learn a lot more. And I've had vets that came around like Rondo, like Lou Will, like Jeremy Lin. When I was a rookie, he had been through Linsanity and everything about him and everything. So I was able to pick their brains and ask them questions. And so I'm just— I'm just— I'm just thankful that I was able to learn through some struggles early on to be where I'm at now. And so it's supposed to only be better from here on out.

Speaking of rebuilding, I think you guys did something that A, most people didn't give you a chance or didn't expect. You all went to the conference finals, like, really ahead of time in that process of rebuilding. Do you think that changed the expectation and narrative on you? Because all of a sudden you're rebuilding and you're leading this rebuild, and then you go to the conference finals and now there's an expectation the next year. And the reality is you're really still in that same window that you were in. You just had some success. Do you think that— Yeah. That changed things for you?

For sure. I think that definitely like changed the outlook of our team and where we were supposed to go and where we were headed. 'Cause we were like, we were on a track of just continuing to get better. We, I mean, like we weren't the most talented team left in the playoffs, but we had some talented guys, you know what I'm saying? But we had guys that clicked at the right moment and it happened. But going into the next season, obviously the expectations are higher because you, we went to the conference finals, we went further than what we were expected to be. And so if we don't get better as a team, like, everybody's gonna be coming for us, everybody's gonna catch us. And so I think that's what happened that next year, being knocked out in the first round. But like, I just— it definitely changes things when you go that far. I mean, you know, you win championships, you're expected to win championship the next year, or you ain't supposed to be knocked out in the first round. So it's like— Draymond Green. You have to learn through it and you go through it. And that's definitely something that I've learned through the process of whenever you get that far, you're expected to go that same route or even further the next year. So I don't, I'm not mad at it because that's my expectations. I expected to go further that next year and I felt down when we didn't. So I'm never mad at a fan of our team that feels that we should be better than where we were the year before because that's my expectations too.

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.