Draymond Green Says Losing In The NBA Finals Is One Of The Worst Ways To End A Season

4x Warriors champion reveals the worst way to end a season.

4 Min Read

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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.

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Nico Martinez is a veteran staff writer for Fadeaway World from Brooklyn, New York. He joined Fadeaway World in 2016 and is currently residing in Columbia, South Carolina. Nico holds a degree in Sports Management from Columbia International University where he built a strong foundation in the inner workings of sports media and management. Nico's contributions have significantly enhanced the credibility and depth of Fadeaway World's content, earning him recognition across the sports journalism community. His work has been discussed in prestigious publications like Sports Illustrated. A dedicated follower of LeBron James, Nico often leads coverage on news related to the basketball star. With nearly a decade of experience in sports journalism, Nico consistently provides comprehensive and timely basketball news, engaging a wide audience of basketball enthusiasts.Nico's most desired player to interview, past or present, is Kevin Durant. He is particularly keen on asking Durant if he has any regrets about his career, especially concerning his departure from the Oklahoma City Thunder, and why he engages so much with fans on social media. 
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