Draymond Green recently discussed how some players decrease their level when they land in different teams with different situations.
Draymond admitted that the Warriors could do more to reach the NBA playoffs this year. They lost twice in the play-in tournament, finishing the season earlier than expected. However, he thinks the team played well, considering the absence of Klay Thompson and how complex things went for them during the campaign.
“I think under the circumstances, we played well,” Green said on “The Big Podcast with Shaq.” “It doesn’t rank up there with the top seasons in my career at all because we lost. It definitely doesn’t rank at the top of my career as far as stress goes, because losing is easy. It’s the winning that’s hard, it’s the expectation that I’m going in there every single day, knowing that everyone thinks you’re going to win, knowing that everyone’s watching, the expectations are as high up as you can see. Those are the stressful times, losing is easy.
“We didn’t make the playoffs, that’s not very stressful to me. When you go into a game and you’re not expected to win, there’s no stress in that. I don’t think as far as stress goes — from a basketball standpoint — this season was stressful at all.”
Discussing the pressures of this season, Green revealed that only the COVID-19 situation was hard to deal with, but other than that, things were simple for him. He added that playing on a team with no expectations is easier, explaining why some players exceed while playing on a bad squad.
“From an overall standpoint, it was extremely stressful with all of the COVID tests [and all of those factors],” Green said. “With all of that stuff it was difficult, but from a basketball standpoint, you’re not expected to win.
“Ain’t no stress in that, which is why you can see guys play great on terrible teams and then they go to teams where games are meaningful and all of the sudden you don’t recognize the player.”
It’s unclear if he was talking about a specific player here, but NBA fans started wondering what he meant by that. They started talking about Kelly Oubre Jr., Aaron Gordon, and more.
I wonder who he’s talking about specifically here?
Oubre.
No way. Phoenix Suns was great in the bubble even with him out.
Kevin love
this is likely the answer. Also maybe Kelly Oubre, Porzingis and Aaron Gordon (hasn’t done much for Denver).
Wasn’t Aaron Gordon really good for them when they first got him? And hasn’t he been okay recently? I thought he was filling his role pretty well. I may be way off here
Aaron Gordon fits this mold now that he’s on Denver and is just another guy instead of a “star”
He was just another guy in Orlando lol. That’s why they traded him.
Schröder/Trez maybe? They both were great on their previous teams but didn’t always play their best with the Lakers
Vucevic maybe?
Vuvecic went from terrible team to another terrible team.
KL
Kristaps Porzingis
Jrue? Idk
Kemba
Westbrook.
Oubre didn’t deliver as the Warriors wanted, earning him a lot of criticism, with Steve Kerr even relegating him to the bench. Now that Klay Thompson is back, the former Washington Wizards, Phoenix Suns player is likely to leave the Warriors. Otherwise, he’ll have a diminished role with the team.
