Golden State Warriors veteran Draymond Green said the team can’t depend upon Stephen Curry’s return to make a run at the playoffs. (Photo by Kelley L Cox/Getty Images)
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Draymond Green knows this season has been a tough one for the Golden State Warriors.
As the Warriors enter the month of April and the final two weeks of the regular season, they’re entrenched in the play-in for the Western Conference playoffs. Golden State is currently in 10th place with no chance of moving into the sixth spot to avoid the play-in tournament.
Golden State has been plagued by injuries this season with Curry missing the past 25 games due to an ailing knee. To make matters worse, Jimmy Butler is out for the season due to a season-ending knee injury suffered back in January, as is Moses Moody.
As the Warriors contemplate whether or not they should even have Curry return this season – head coach Steve Kerr has stated that he would like to have the All-Star point guard get some games in before a play-in game – Golden State is trying to make it worth with a young makeshift lineup surrounding Green.
Golden State has used 37 different starting lineups this season and leading into their game against the Denver Nuggets, they had gone 13-22 without Curry.
“We definitely hope to have Steph back,” said Green in a one-on-one interview. “There’s no guarantee that he’s going to be back, but you know that would be the hope. But I think ultimately, just whoever you have on the floor, you have to continue to try to build great habits. When you can kind of get this snake bit mentality like, ‘Oh man, just won’t work for us. We got bad luck,’ or all these things, you kind of get this snake bit mentality where you start to think negatively about things.
“If you have to think negatively about things, that’s the end, it doesn’t work past that,” Green continued to say. “I think for us, it’s just about staying the course, understanding that listen, throughout the course of the NBA season, lots of sunny days, there’s a lot of rainy days, and you got to process the rainy days.”
Green is obviously the veteran and leader of the current starting lineup which features just one other experienced player in Kristaps Porzingis. Following Moody’s injury, the remainder of the lineup features 23-year-olds Gui Santos, Brandin Podziemski and Will Richard.
Leading into their game against the Nuggets, the Warriors had won three straight games as they look to clinch their fourth playoff appearance in the past five seasons.
Green preaches that the Warriors need to continue “staying the course” in spite of all of the injuries and can’t just be relying on the hope that Curry will return to the lineup.
Curry is averaging a team-leading 27.2 points per game on 46.8% from the field and 39.1% from beyond the arc.
“When you are in a better position from a health standpoint, we’re able to play that brand of basketball and not just think, ‘Oh, man, you can go out, you can put a crappy product out there on the floor,’” said Green. “You can go into these games with terrible focus. And then you get everybody back, and all of a sudden you think, ‘Oh, now we could just flip the switch.’ It doesn’t work like that because you build bad habits. It’s just as quick as you can build a bad habit. It takes double, triple the time to break it.”
Draymond Green On Why He Uses NBA Threads, How It Helps Him Engage With Fans
Green is one of the more prominent and outspoken figures in the NBA. While he’s certainly recognized for being a four-time NBA champion and one of the best defensive players of his generation, he’s also known for being passionate and very vocal when it comes to on the court and off the court issues.
One area where Green has been spending a lot of his time on is none other than the NBA Threads community, a hub for high-speed basketball conversation. Green uses Threads to talk basketball and engage with fans.
The 36-year-old veteran mentioned his favorite feature of NBA Threads is the AIgo feature, the AI-powered feature of the platform.
“I think NBA threads is just a conversation around the NBA,” said Green. “It’s kind of the community of all threads and it’s everything NBA, all discourse around the game. And interestingly enough, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but it just ties right into my answer, Dear AIgo – the AI-powered feature – has been very interesting for me, because initially you see the conversations on Threads, which is one of the things that made me fall in love with Threads. I felt like it was more tailored to the things that you like than any other platform, which is what I really enjoyed about the platform.
“Then Dear AIgo came along, and it’s the direct conversations you want to talk,” Green continued to say. “It even it kind of consolidates the conversation even more to directly what you want to see about basketball. I really enjoyed just all my time at Threads as a whole, from just the concentrated information that you come across, DearAIgo has taken it to another level, which has been great for myself.”
Green – who said he’s been using the platform for at least a year – said he mainly uses it to engage with fans. He also said it’s a “great” source of information.
“I interact with fans, that’s what I usually most for,” said Green. “Use it mostly to interact with fans, but it’s also just a great source of information. Like I found out things about our team on Threads, which is very interesting in itself.”
The veteran forward said multiple NBA guys uses the platform and mentioned that Kendrick Perkins is one of the more notable names who uses NBA Threads. Perkins notably works for ESPN as an NBA analyst.
“I don’t know how many of my teammates use it, but I know there’s quite a few NBA guys on it, and a lot of the retired guys really are on it a lot,” said Green. “One guy that jumps out that’s on there every day is Kendrick Perkins. He’s on there every single day. He creates lot of discourse.”
Green mentioned another reason why he’s big on using NBA Threads is you’re able to tune out the negative thoughts on posts on the platform, something that’s hard to do on other social media platforms such as X.
”You think about our lives on social media, and it’s a lot of crap that you run into, everyone has an opinion,” said Green. “Everyone is the next great when it comes to their observations on basketball, and so with that, there’s the chance you see a lot of stuff that you don’t want to see, which I think ultimately it’s what drives players away from social media. It’s why some players go dark during the playoffs and different times, because there’s so many opinions, negative thoughts to keep up with or not even keep up with just that you come across.”
The Warriors veteran continued to preach the benefits of using NBA Threads, mentioning how negative social media can have a major effect on players.
“The reality is for the toughest person, it has an effect,” Green continued to say. “I think it’s one of the things that drives guys at different times away from social media. You talk about Dear AIgo and you see the things that you want to see. You see the things that is concentrated and you know what you want your focus level to be on when you’re on the app. I think that makes all the difference in the world because these platforms become a part of your life, your everyday life.
“To just get off it that has an effect too,” Green continued. “I think having the ability, the opportunity to kind of stay in your routine if you will, but see things that’s conducive to what you’re trying to do in life. Or what you’re trying to do on the day to day, what you’re trying to study on a day to day, what you’re trying to read up on or indulge in from a day to day.”