Draymond Green and Miles Bridges discuss LaMelo Ball's electrifying style and how his unpredictable play and contagious energy reshape team culture. Green draws a parallel between LaMelo's flashy approach and Steph Curry's loose, relaxed game, both shaping how their teams play.
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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. Last year, LaMelo Ball joined you guys' team, and I think we all know how incredible of a player that he is. But what's been most exciting for you about playing with LaMelo?
Just the excitement that he brings to the game. You never know what he's gonna do. You know, you might think you're going up for a regular lob, he go between the legs and throw it up. Or just him getting hot at any moment. He's very, very streaky. If he sees one go in, he's excited. He's excited the whole game. So, like, I love playing with him. He's a great passer, great facilitator, great teammate. I love being around him as a person. So I'm happy that we got, that we got Melo.
Absolutely. I think from what I see, his energy seems to be contagious. Like, you guys go out there—
Yes, sir.
It reminds me a lot of Steph in a different way. Like Melo's more flashy in life overall, not just on the basketball court, but he's more flashy. He's just kind of more culturally into different things that Steph weren't. But when I say remind me of Steph, I mean the looseness. Like Steph is super loose, super chill, super casual. And he played a game of basketball that way. And in turn, our entire organization ended up following that. Like you come around and it's loose, it's, you know, you walk into a practice, guys throwing basketball all over the place. And I think I see some of that from you guys. Do you feel that way or am I off a little bit?
Oh yeah. I mean, right on the money. You know, as soon as he got here, the culture changed. He's always had a lot of fans since he was like, what, 13? 14, so he's always had that swag to him and all that, and he brought that to us. You know, that's how we've been playing. Our practice has been different. Our energy within the crowd during the games is different. You can tell whenever he steps on the court that they just love him, and he feeds off that, so I feel like that helps us out, too. And he does a great job of keeping everybody energized. Like you said, his energy is contagious. [SPEAKING SPANISH] Yeah, he's been a great addition for that.
You guys have a lot of young talent in yourself, Kelly, who I had the opportunity to be a teammate with last year that I really enjoyed, Terry Rozier. But then you also have a couple veteran guys in Gordon and Mason, I'm sorry. How is that mix? I know coming into this season, like we have, we're kind of in that same position where we have a mixture of, some experienced guys and then also a bunch of young guys as well. And I wasn't sure, and you could check my interviews from the beginning of the season, I wasn't sure how that will work because, and I said it in my interview, I said historically we've never seen that work or where you try to mix a group of young guys with some old guys who timeline are different. And it's been working for us and it's worked for y'all to some degree too.
Yeah.
How do you feel about that mix and how it makes the magic of y'all team happen?
I mean, it's great for me. You know, like my first season I was in there with just straight vets. You know, like we had Kemba Walker, Nick Batum, Jerami Lamb, Marvin Williams, all those guys. And we were good, but you know, it's just, it's hard just being a young guy coming in. You know, they got wives, they got all that type of stuff. You know, you don't really get to hang out with them like that. My second year, it was more so all young guys, and then we're inexperienced. We're getting blown out by 20 every game with no vet to tell us what's going on. So for us to have a mixture now, I feel like it's great for us, you know. We have Gordon. We have Gordon whenever things get out of hand. He has— he calms us down. And then when it's time to go up and down the floor, you can rely on your young guys. So I feel like it's good for a mixture in the locker room and outside the locker room too when you're hanging out. [FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
