In a segment on the ‘Club 520 podcast,’ Warriors star Draymond Green opened up on which of his four championships was the hardest to win. Unsurprisingly, he picked the 2022 title as not only the hardest but also his favorite out of all of them.
“2022 wasn’t really a championship team.. but that’s also when Steph took that next step of like ‘nah I’m really one of them GOATs’ and he carried us,” said Green. That was the toughest one. [The Warriors] weren’t favorites, like everybody was calling us too small… and we went and made it happen. So that one was my favorite one, and then also I told [Kevin Durant], ‘I’m gonna win when you leave here.’”
Nobody was expecting the Warriors to win another championship when Kevin Durant left in 2019. When he made the move to Brooklyn, he left behind a Warriors team that was broken and almost unrecognizable from their peak dynasty days. For a long while there, the Warriors struggled to win any games at all, ranking near the bottom of the standings for two straight seasons.
It wasn’t until the trade for Andrew Wiggins that things started to turn around for the Warriors. When he joined in February of 2020, it gave the Warriors a borderline All-Star on the wing to help bolster their play on both ends of the floor. The ascension of Jordan Poole that year was also part of the success story and his play on the perimeter breathed new life into the organization.
While things have been pretty sour in Golden State since their 2022 championship, it was pretty impressive that they were able to win it at all given how much had changed from their days with Kevin Durant. But as Green has mentioned before already, Durant’s departure is what helped motivate the Warriors to their peak form.
What Happened Between Draymond And Kevin Durant?
It was Draymond Green who first recruited Kevin Durant back in 2016, and they maintained a healthy relationship for years until Durant’s final season there in 2018-19. While the details of their split are still murky, we can trace it back to an encounter back in November of 2018.
During an overtime loss to the Clippers, Durant and Green went back and forth in a very public and very intense argument on the sidelines. Things got personal between the players and there was a sense right away that it was a moment that could end up splitting the team apart.
Eventually, Durant left and Draymond to this day considers his move to the Nets as a massive slap in the face: “‘I opened my home to you. I brought you into this. I made you a part of this,” said Green.
Clearly, there are still some lingering feelings over how things ended back in 2019, but Draymond is the one who has won a championship in the years since. Meanwhile, Durant is still looking to prove that he can win a championship on his own, outside the influence of Curry, Klay, and Draymond.
By all accounts, that 2022 championship run was the ultimate validation for this Warriors team and confirmation that whether they had Durant or not, they were going to find a way to win. Now, the Warriors are hoping to pull it off once again by maximizing what’s left of Curry’s prime and putting together a team that can make some serious noise.
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