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GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS MEDIA CONFERENCE

September 22, 2017

Draymond Green

Oakland, California

Q. You had some praise for Bob Myers at the parade this year. Can you reflect a little bit on what he was able to do since then for this team?
DRAYMOND GREEN: I definitely had high praise for Bob. That hasn't changed one bit. If anything, it's higher. But, you know, what he did with this team is fantastic, to keep -- I don't know how often somebody brings 12 guys back.

I don't think that's usually the case. But for us to bring 12 guys back and with the additions we added, I think it was a great offseason. To sign every guy that we said we were going to re-sign, it never usually happens like that.

A lot of credit to Bob and getting the job done. A lot of credit to ownership and stepping up and giving Bob the resources that it takes to get the job done. I think they all form an incredible team, partnership, and it showed in Bob's work and free agency.

Q. One of the talking points during this very short offseason has been whether you guys are going to go to the White House or not, and some of your teammates have spoken out and said they won't. And I'm just wondering where you stand on that. I understand you guys are going to have a discussion as a team?
DRAYMOND GREEN: Yeah, we're going to have a discussion, pretty much kind of take the temperature of everyone. And we're going to decide whatever is best, whatever we think is best for us. It may not be the popular thing to do, the most popular thing or whatever we decide.

But at the end of the day we are the ones that have to attend. If we decide to attend, and I think it's only right that we all decide together. It's not one person's choice, it's not two people. It will be between all of us. And we'll come up with a decision and then go from there.

Q. (Off microphone)?
DRAYMOND GREEN: I have an opinion on pretty much everything. It's just who I am. But at the end of the day, like I said, this isn't a personal decision. So I can kind of have my opinion on what I think. But I could think, hell no, I'm not going, or I could think, hell yeah, I want to go. At the end of the day we're going to decide as a team.

If we're deciding as a team one person's opinion doesn't matter we're going to come together collectively decide what we think is best for everyone.

Q. As someone who has experienced mishaps on social media yourself, did you reach out to KD after his Twitter fiasco at all? And if so, what advice did you give him?
DRAYMOND GREEN: Jesus, throw me under the bus, why don't you. Never let me just float.

Yeah, I reached out to him. I talked to him through texts the day of. And then the next day I saw him in person and I laughed in his face. I thought it was -- I got a good laugh out of it. It's pretty funny to me.

And I reminded him since you want to talk about my mishap, I reminded him of my mishap. And when we were at USA Basketball, the day my mishap happened, I was stressed out and all of them were laughing in my face from him to -- Demarcus probably was the worst.

And the beat goes on. They all laughed in my face. So it was a little payback. I stood right there, right over there and laughed in his face. And it felt pretty damn good to do.

Q. Obviously you said Bob brought 12 guys back. A lot of your competition specifically in the West changed a lot. How much time do you spend thinking about, all right, now we've got this pairing to look at? Maybe it's how your defensive responsibilities might change against different teams. How much of your offseason do you think about that stuff?
DRAYMOND GREEN: I try to spend my offseason not thinking about the season at all, other than preparing myself for the things that I want to accomplish.

Try not to focus on what other teams are doing. Obviously I'm a basketball fan. You see it -- I see it all just like y'all see it all. But to worry or try to plan, I try -- the season's long enough to have to do that.

I think at the end of the day, yeah, teams did make a lot of moves, but our goal is the same goal as always -- be the best version of us that we can be. And I think just like any other year, when we're the best version of us that we can be and we get better each and every time we step on the floor, I still think we're the best team.

So that's just my opinion. So I'll focus and worry about us and what we're going to do, not necessarily how another team is going to gel or how this duo is -- I think if we take care of what we need to take care of, it really don't matter how much others gel.

Q. Steve indicated that you went with him and KD I think to Los Angeles to help recruit Nick Young. And obviously you were in on the recruiting of KD and all this stuff. Do you see that as an actual important function of you as a team -- being kind of a salesman and selling the team to guys like that?
DRAYMOND GREEN: I just love to win. Actually, I hate to lose. And hating to lose, you gotta find ways to get better. And helping recruit guys is one of the ways that you get better.

So I don't take it for granted. I don't take it like, oh, it's Steve's job just to go or it's Bob's job. Like at the end of the day Nick would never step on the floor with Steve. He'll never step on the floor with Bob.

And I know how I would look at it if a team was recruiting me, like, yeah, you want to be able to talk to your GM. And you want to have rapport with your coach. But at the end of the day you could never step out there with them.

So I need to know the guys I'm really going in the pits with. Who am I going out and battling with? Who am I around every day? I think that's sometimes more important. I know that's how I would look at it, like I said, if I was a guy being recruited.

One of the reasons I chose to go to Michigan State is because I loved the guys there and they recruited me. And so that kind of taught me a lesson dating back to high school. And I just kind of stick by it.

Q. You won two championships. At what point does making history take on become part of your motivation for doing this? Because you have to find ways to get motivated I'm sure other than just wanting --
DRAYMOND GREEN: I mean, it's always somewhere in the back of your mind. I don't think you're going into every day thinking, oh, man, we're going to make history. It's so hard to make history. Like, that's over a course of time. You have to approach that year by year.

So I think it's okay to have goals like that, but those are long-term goals. I think you have to set the short-term goals in order to reach those.

And so the history for us would be to try to repeat. What is it seven teams, eight teams, something like that, that's repeated? We wanted to do that we had an opportunity up 3-1 and couldn't close the deal. So that's something we want to do.

I think when you're setting short-term goals like that, you can set the goal of making history if you want, but if you set the right short-term goals, history will be made anyway, if you can reach those short-term goals.

Q. Been a pretty crazy three-year run going from an up-start team to the, quote/unquote, super villains. Did you have a chance this summer to reflect on just what's happened over the last three years? And how do you think you've adjust from going from that plucky team that no one really thought to now, historically, arguably a great franchise?
DRAYMOND GREEN: I do think about that all the time. It's a special thing. And I think a lot of times in life we forget to live in the moment, especially in our day and age, social media -- let me record this. Miss everything I'm watching because I am looking at it through a phone. You forget to enjoy the moment.

So for me, I try to enjoy the moment. That's really what I try to live by is really enjoying it. With things like that, as much as I try to enjoy the moment, you'll never fully understand it until it's over.

And as crazy as that sounds, you know, we all say like, hey, man, enjoy it while you've got it because once it's over it's over. And you do that to the best of your ability but you'll never get the full understanding until it's over. Because at the end of the day I'm still grinding every day trying to make it happen again, trying to do this better, trying to do that better. So you can never really get it until you're done with it and you look back.

So, for instance, looking back at last season I can look back at it and say, man, that was so special. But then your (indiscernible) so quick. How do we do that again next year? How do we get better and all these different things?

I do reflect a lot. I think it's been an amazing three years. You look at the things that we've been able to accomplish as a team, as an organization, and then things, guys have been able to accomplish individually as well. I think it's been special. And it's definitely something that this group doesn't take for granted.

Q. Are you surprised at all, like, how (indiscernible)?
DRAYMOND GREEN: I'm not surprised, but I also know it wasn't easy. Sometimes it may look easy when you win 73 games, 67 and whatever the other number was, 60-something. It may look easy to go to three straight Finals, to have won two out of three. But it's hard. It's extremely hard. I never sit back and say, man, we did that easy. It wasn't easy. It's hard work every single day.

To say that I think it would happen that fast, I mean, you kind of saw guys, you saw us growing as a team, but you definitely saw guys coming into their own.

If you look at Steph's career three years ago, he wasn't where he is today. Klay, myself, the beat goes on. If you look at the dramatic changes in individuals over the last three years, then you can kind of sit back and say, okay, I understand their dominance. But it definitely starts with guys getting better as individual players in order to make the team better.

Q. Circling back to what you were saying about giving Kevin a hard team about the tweet, what's his mood been like and his reaction overall after you were giving him a hard time?
DRAYMOND GREEN: You could tell he was definitely sorry about it. He said, y'all, I was just really having fun and then I went too far.

And I understand that. We all do things in life where we're just having fun and you look up and, like, uh-ho, it was fun for the time being now it's not so fun anymore. I think everyone in here, including myself, has all done that.

You are just living in the moment. You're enjoying what you're doing and then you realize, like, yeah, that probably wasn't the best idea. At the end of the day there's still a human element to this whole thing, whether you're the first-best or second- or third- or fourth-best player in the league to the 500th or 450 or however many guys it is, there's still a human element to this.

And things like that show that human element. So at the end of the day, we move on. He's not a distraction to us. He steps on the floor, plays hard every night.

He didn't go out and, you know, commit a crime. At the end of the day, it maybe wasn't the right tweets but he sent some tweets. And I know Kevin's a smart guy. I know he's a remorseful guy, sometimes probably too remorseful. But at the end of the day that's who he is. He feels bad about it. There's nothing he can do to change it.

He came out. He took credit for it. Which I respect. There are so many different things that he could have done. And saying, yeah, that wasn't me or, like, somebody -- like he could have done so many other things. He stepped up, he said I did it, I was wrong, and we move on from it.

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