SAN FRANCISCO – Cell phone flashlights sway back and forth throughout the Chase Center stands. Draymond Green and his Warriors teammates have their cell phones out, too. Green raises his arms up and down at the start of the song and bounces his way over to the scorer’s table to join a dancing Steph Curry.
It’s one week from the 2024-25 NBA regular season and the Warriors are enjoying their annual tradition of karaoke for the rookies at open practice, with Quinten Post of the Netherlands belting out Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’.” When Curry and Green hop down from the scorer’s table, Green is dancing and singing along, fully immersed in the moment at 34 years old, about to enter his 13th season with the Warriors. He’s so immersed that Green won’t allow Jackson Rowe, next on the mic, to get away with only singing one verse of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough” by Marvin Gaye, playfully booing Rowe so hard that he started all the way over.
There Green is again on the scorer’s table, this time by himself, kicking his legs, dancing and singing every word. The next day, a flip switches. It’s go-time for Green and the Warriors.
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"He's been fantastic,” Kerr said the following day after practice. “He's so locked in. Today, it was our best practice of camp, and a big reason why is Draymond basically was stepping in and coaching in spots where guys needed guidance or if he saw something.”
That right there, that balance of Green, is when he’s at his best. Engaged in every way as a teammate and person, something that fell by the wayside a bit the past two tumultuous seasons.
"Draymond, first and foremost, he's always on his A game,” Warriors second-year center Trayce Jackson-Davis said. “But this practice, he just went above and beyond. Was teaching guys, was doing a lot of things – a lot of really, really good things that helped our team. When a guy does that, a lot of us young guys feed off of that."
TJD gives insight on Draymond's "above and beyond" impact during yesterday's practice 🫡 pic.twitter.com/DufULPbOhL
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) October 19, 2024
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Whatever lessons Green was teaching his teammates, whatever wisdom was handed to a group of several new additions and young Warriors who will have major roles this season, carried over the next night. The Warriors, to cap off a perfect 6-0 preseason, destroyed the undermanned Los Angeles Lakers by 58 points.
Green only played 16 minutes and was a plus-15 in limited time without taking one shot. The ball was humming and Green was the conductor of this Warriors train that couldn’t be stopped. Green assisted both of their first two made baskets and by the 4:40 mark of the first quarter, he already was up to five assists as the Warriors led by 10 points.
He can be the veteran whose beard is now more salt and pepper than jet black swag surfing with his teammates during a timeout of the Warriors’ preseason opener in Hawaii, and the one that firmly directs them where to be on the court. The Warriors need him to be both. They have six players in contract years, four young players looking to show they can be part of another championship and four offseason additions who want to prove general manager Mike Dunleavy right in building a deep team made to withstand the ups and downs of an NBA season.
They need all of Draymond.
Without him last season because of suspensions from putting Rudy Gobert in a chokehold and going Cobra Kai on Jusuf Nurkic, Green missed 27 games. The Warriors went 13-14 in games Green missed and had a 128.7 defensive rating. With him, the Warriors were 33-22 and had a 118.4 defensive rating.
Their .600 winning percentage when Green was on the floor would have made the Warriors a playoff team as the No. 6 seed in the Western Conference, instead of falling to the play-in tournament as the No. 10 seed.
Green became less involved with the Warriors the past two seasons where his preseason punch to Jordan Poole put a stain on the season before it even began, followed by physical acts again getting in his and the Warriors’ way. Curry and Kerr weren’t seeing, or hearing, the same Green they were accustomed to. Brandin Podziemski coming into his second season sees a version of the four-time champion that has made him a future Hall of Famer as one of the NBA’s best success stories.
"In terms of the energy he's bringing consistently now, I just feel like there's new life to him,” Podziemski says. “He knows it's a new season. Obviously going through the suspension last year and games missed, it's hard to kind of get your mind back right after something like that. I think he's done a great thing over the summer and carried it to now, being there for everyone else."
"There's new life to him."
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) October 22, 2024
Brandin Podziemski describes how he's seen Draymond Green's mindset evolve since last season pic.twitter.com/6j43Ui7kac
Now a father of four, Green knows he can’t erase the past. The punch will always be there. Images of the 7-foot Gobert looking like he’s being put to sleep by Green aren’t going away. The Internet is forever.
So are Green’s four rings, fueled by his fire that appears to be re-lit again in all the right ways.
“He carries a big voice, and he's the ultimate competitor and winner,” Kerr said. “When we get the best version of Draymond, there's nobody like him in the league. That's why we've hung banners, that's why Draymond is here.
"It's up to us to help him be the best version of himself, and he's had a great camp."
The Warriors still orbit around the planet that is Steph Curry. They go as he goes, yet nobody can swing the pendulum of what the Warriors’ season will be more than Green. He has climbed every mountain deemed too high for him. If the all-encompassing preseason edition of him is who he will be on and off the court for an 82-game campaign, the Warriors and Green alike can remind the basketball world to never stop believing.