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GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS MEDIA CONFERENCESeptember 24, 2018Draymond GreenOakland, California Q. Both Steve and Bob have talked, they've said it before, how they want you guys to enjoy the season. They understand you've got house money. You've won three championships. Who knows how long this might last. Is that in your mind right now? Do you think of it that way? Or maybe do you have a different approach? DRAYMOND GREEN: I mean, I definitely don't approach it like we're playing with house money. We do have three championships. They're all in the past. It's about approaching each year with that same goal and that same mentality. And the point you get to the point where, oh, man, we're just playing house money, we already got it, you're done. None of us are ready for this run to come to an end. So we've got to continue to approach it like we've got zero. And that's cliche and impossible to do, but you want to try to get as close to that as you possibly can. And that's my mindset always entering the season. Q. What's your philosophy overall with the idea of extension talks? What sort of things are you weighing as far as how open you would be to that versus just waiting? DRAYMOND GREEN: You know, this is a business. You always have to explore those options, see what makes sense, what doesn't. I'm confident that I'll be here for a very long time. So it's not something I'm going into the season thinking about. Like all that stuff will be taken care of when it's best for me, when it's best for the team. I'm not looking at this one-sided like, oh man, I've, gotta do what's right for Draymond. It's a partnership. And it's a family. And doing the right thing for everyone involved is important. So we just gotta approach this the right way. And when the time is right, you know, all that stuff will be taken care of. But I'm not going into the season thinking about it. Q. I know during the offseason when you're going through your workouts you're typically just worried about yourself as you try to get better. But as the season approaches, have you gotten a chance to kind of take a look at the landscape of the rest of the Western Conference and see what other teams have done? And if so who do you think has gotten better this offseason? DRAYMOND GREEN: I'm a fan of basketball. So I'm always just interested in what's going on. I watch all the moves. I think some teams have improved. Obviously the Lakers, look like they're going to improve. And several other teams. At the end of the day, I think a lot of people are counting the Spurs out. Like they're going to be good. So they're always good. So it's going to be teams that are really good. But I approach it the same way: If we play our best game, our best brand of basketball we can play, we'll win. And so that's my focus, on us being the best us, knowing that if we are, it really don't matter what anyone else does. Q. I know you've said in the past that DeMarcus is the best big man in the league, and you have a lot of respect for him. How much do you look forward to once he's healthy working him in? And also Jordan Bell wants you and DeMarcus to scrap a little bit on the court and get into it and he wants to commentate. So what's your take on that potential lineup? DRAYMOND GREEN: Definitely looking forward to DeMarcus getting healthy. Obviously DeMarcus is one of the most talented players in our league. Most people see, oh, man, DeMarcus went to the Warriors, they won. And it ain't that easy. Like that's 26 points a game you're working into the lineup. Like it's tough. But that's the fun part. The fun part is making it work. I think back to when KD came here, everybody, oh, man, they've got Kevin Durant, they won 73 games, it's over. And honestly the fun part wasn't winning the championship. The fun part was during the year figuring that out, how we was going to make that work. And I'm looking forward to the same thing with DeMarcus. As far as me and DeMarcus scrapping it out, what did he say, scrapping it up? Why does Jordan want me to fight? Why don't he want to fight? He's a young guy. He should be the one wanting to fight. I'm getting old. So he can have that. Q. You spoke on DeMarcus, but he's probably going to be out for the onset of the season, which means there's going to be a three-way battle for the center position. How does that affect you with the team and just running the offense and defense, knowing you'll have a younger guy there than in previous years at center? DRAYMOND GREEN: I mean, I think having a younger guy there obviously comes with more athleticism, more speed. That's just kind of the nature of the game that we play. So it may speed the game up for us a little bit. But not having a Zaza or D West or a Bogut, D Lee, it's going to be different. It's going to be a different feel for us. Nonetheless, what those guys that came before these young guys has taught myself and these guys is important. You take those things that they taught you and the things that all three of those guys I mentioned has given to this organization, you try to add them, incorporate them into your game. Like I said, I think it will be a different look, but nonetheless all three of those -- well, two, and I still think last year when we played Houston, Damian won us a game. All three of those are -- OKC, I think it was. All three of those guys have played significant minutes for us. And especially Damian and Jordan, I mean Kevon and Jordan, they made significant minutes in the Finals, Conference Finals. And they'll have an opportunity to get some big minutes and I look forward to them competing for them. Q. I just read your Instagram post. You said you didn't want to talk about last year until you were ready because it was the hardest season you've ever been through; it was so hard you're ready to put it behind you. But how do you build on that? What do you take from that season into this year with expectations, you might say, might be even higher for this team? DRAYMOND GREEN: Honestly, I don't even feel expectations anymore. Because our expectations for ourselves are so high that I don't really feel expectations from anyone else other than who is in this every day -- our coaching staff our front office our players, everyone who works in this organization who is part of that grind every day. I don't feel expectations from anyone else. So that part is irrelevant to me. How do we build on that, you take the experiences that we went through and you learn from them, the good and the bad. You try to take the good with you but you don't leave the bad behind. You learn from those so you don't go through those again I think that's how we'll build on it and that will be our focus. As far as me not commenting on the Finals, it was the toughest thing I've ever been through in my life. Just last season, like I said the Houston series was so tough and even the Finals, everybody like you want it easy because you swept. That wasn't easy. It's like it's not easy to sweep with a team that makes it to the NBA Finals by far one of the toughest things I've ever done in my life is winning that championship last year and afterwards I didn't want nothing to do with it. I didn't want to think about the basketball didn't want to think about the run none of that didn't want to see the trophy. We get opportunity to like take the trophy back home or wherever you want to go. I wanted no parts of it. It was so tough that I really needed to decompress from that and just get away from it for a while. It wasn't something that I really wanted to think about. Now we move forward and appreciate what we did last year but it's time to try to do that all over again. Q. Related to that last question, but at this point in your career and evolution of this team, is it enough to just say, hey, we're all professionals, we'll approach this as we always have and we'll do our best to win or do you guys need to find creative ways of finding motivation? DRAYMOND GREEN: I think every season comes with different challenges. And we won the championship three times in four years. To sit here and say oh man we're going to have that same excitement and enthusiasm that we had in year one, it's a lie, it's just not possible. (Lost audio) many months in the season having three guys under three years of experience not total, but under three years of experience competing for the center spot. How do you make that work. We lost veteran guys so how are you figuring that out? It's about games within a game at this point and when you're trying to figure those things out you get better. And every day you're not looking saying oh man how do we get back to the Finals how are we going to win a championship because you're trying to figure other things out. Then when you get to that point you're ready for it. I think that's the most important thing for us and I think those challenges will be stiff enough for us to focus on them and get those things done and then the playoffs and all that stuff will come when it does. Q. You talked about how tough last year's championship was in your last answer. Everybody's here talked about it Bob and Steve talked about they don't want it to be the message to harp how hard it was. You guys did a lot last year. Is it freeing in a way that coming into this season with there being so much uncertainty in the future about this organization with guys contracts and stuff that you guys can maybe just say, hey, let's go out and enjoy this year together and then we'll figure out what's going to happen after that? DRAYMOND GREEN: I think that's what it will be. We're not going to go this whole season talking about how much uncertainty it is as far as contracts. We've got the team that we've got right now you've got to win with that team. When all that stuff comes up, it will get handled. But right now we're all together and that's the most important thing is trying to be the best that this team can be. Everything else will take care of itself. Q. You talked about getting old. Your starting season with Andre Iguodala I think for the sixth or seventh year, a lot of people judge his career have a difficult time doing it because they don't obviously see a lot of his game in the numbers. What kind of case could you make for him for the hall of fame? DRAYMOND GREEN: I mean, he's been doing this for years. He's had times in his career where he put up the numbers. He had time in his career where the numbers weren't there but you know his impact was there. NBA Finals MVP, three championships. Olympic gold medalist. The resumé is there for sure. All-star. Like the resumé is there. And I think he's done enough to solidify that but also don't think he approached every day saying how do I get into the hall of fame. He's just not that type of person. But what he's done for this organization and this team and what he's done for every organization that he's played in, he's made them a better organization by way of him being there, whether it's Philly, Denver or here, he's made a better organization, better team. So I think his case is solid and he'll continue to build on that resumé. Q. If you win defensive player of this year or get all-NBA it bumps up the earning potential on your next contract. Is that something that you can or will use as a motivating factor in a regular season that I know can sometimes be mundane? DRAYMOND GREEN: No. No. Because I've never been one to do anything for money. I've never played basketball for money. I play basketball because I love basketball. And those are the things that's made me successful. I'm not going to get to age 28 like year 23 of playing basketball and switch that up now. Because that hasn't been what's successful for me. What's been successful for me is my love for the game and my passion and having that drive to want to win. And when you do those things, when you are playing for the right reason, everything else seems to take care of itself. When you're playing for the wrong reasons, things usually don't go your way. And so I'll continue to approach the game the way I've approached it every year that's trying to be the best me I can be, contribute to the best team I can possibly contribute to and make the team as good as I possibly can and win as many games as I can. Other than that, it's pretty irrelevant. Q. With Durant signing another one-year deal, is it a little bit up in the air in your mind whether this group is going to continue past that year? Is Kevin a little bit who knows what he's going to do after this season? DRAYMOND GREEN: No, I don't think about it like that. Also I know I studied the business side of the league. I don't just go play and say maybe my agent will figure it out or anything like that, like I studied the business side. I could be reading it wrong. And if I am, I am. But me knowing the business side of things, I understand what he did. And we'll see where it all ends up. But like I said we're not going to enter this season saying K signed a one-year deal, what's next? What's next is this next year. How we gonna approach this year? How we going to get to this year? How good will we be; will we three-peat? That's what's next. Everything else after this year, if we're going to focus on that we may as well save our body, save our time save the stress of going through an NBA season if that's what we're going to focus on. That's not the focus. Our focus is trying to win a championship this year and what comes after this year, whether we want to focus on it or not it's not coming until the year is over. So we need to embrace this year and try to win a championship and I know that's everyone's goal coming through this door. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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