Ahead of Game 1 of the 2025 NBA Finals, both teams are feeling the weight of the moment with a championship hanging in the balance. Warriors star Draymond Green has been in this position six times before, and he says losing at this stage is the worst possible fate.
“I personally think making it to the NBA Finals is one of the worst seasons you could have. Going to the NBA Finals and winning the NBA championship, those things are so far apart,” said Green. “You can get to the NBA Finals and not get close to winning the NBA championship. The NBA Finals look like you close by every now and then, you have that 2016 Warriors/Cavs but sometimes you see a team losing in the NBA Finals 4-2 and really not been close to winning a championship. You get nothing from making the NBA Finals except a couple 10K more dollars than the Conference Finals… Making it to the Finals is great, but if you don’t win, it’s almost worse. You might as well have lost in the first round.”
Very few players in the NBA have more experience at winning than Draymond Green. The 4x champion has been a part of the Warriors dynasty since 2012, leading them to four championships as a 4x All-Star, 2x All-NBA player, and former Defensive Player of the Year. Of course, having been to the Finals 10 times in his career, Draymond also has experienced losing at the highest levels.
Draymond is 4-6 in the Finals, with wins in 2015, 2017, 2018, and 2022. In 2016, he lost his first Finals after letting the Warriors give up a 3-1 series lead to LeBron James and the Cavaliers. Suspensions and injuries may have played a role in the series, but James credits the Cavs for breaking the Warriors’ psyche.
Green was so torn up by the loss that he immediately phoned Kevin Durant to make an iconic superteam that would go down in history. The Warriors wouldn’t lose a playoff series again until 2019 when the losses of Klay Thompson and Kevin Durant in the Finals led to a bitter defeat against the Toronto Raptors.
The Warriors broke up after that, and it took years for the Warriors to recover. While they would go on to win another championship in 2022, Dray never forgot those two that he lost, and the series still haunts him to this day.
In Draymond’s mind, missing the playoffs or losing in the first round is much more preferable than losing in the Finals, when you’ve essentially racked up weeks’ worth of extra playing time for no reason. To come within four wins of the title and not win it does serious damage to team morale and it also puts a target on their back going into the next season.
Fortunately, the Warriors didn’t get that far this year. They shocked the world with a run to the West Semifinals before being eliminated by the Timberwolves. With Draymond and Steph returning, with Jimmy Butler in tow, the Warriors are expected to return with a vengeance next season to make one last title run and cement their legacy once and for all as one of the greatest NBA teams of the modern era.
