OAKLAND — He’s the lightning rod, both within the Warriors’ locker room and in group interview sessions with the media.
He’s Draymond Green.
Day 1 of NBA Finals availability featured a large gathering around Green on the hardwood at Oracle Arena. The Second Team All-NBA selection answered questions ranging from his thoughts on USA Olympic soccer to how much film Golden State watched of Channing Frye.
There was one question that peeved Green, one that made him clench his jaw a little bit.
When asked about whether he was happy to be facing a fully healthy Cleveland Cavaliers team this time around — because of criticisms there was an asterisk next to last season’s title — Green was not having it.
“Y’all spent time and energy on that. We didn’t,” Green said.
The reporter interjected: Green actually does spend time and energy on Cleveland’s injury mishaps because he’s fielded questions about the issue.
“Yeah, I didn’t spend much time answering that question,” Green said.
Draymond shutting down a question about proving the Warriors can beat a healthy Cavs team pic.twitter.com/gVIYrMd8Xe
— Kevin Jones (@Mr_KevinJones) June 1, 2016
Andrew Bogut decided to answer the question. Regular beat reporters can often count on Bogut for the truth. The 31-year-old was outspoken about his indifference to winning 73 games. While teammates glowingly said they wanted to be a part of NBA history, Bogut maintained that he only cared about championships.
Bogut’s on last season: enough is enough.
“I don’t really care. The ring doesn’t have an asterisk on it,” Bogut said. “We had guys banged up throughout different series this season — Portland and Houston, Steph [Curry] was banged up. So these things happen. You have to adjust. We’re not coming in saying we have to really prove ourselves now. We did what we did last season and that’s over. This is a new team on both sides of the ball, and we’re going to try to win the series.”
On the other hand, Cleveland had no issue acknowledging the injuries a year ago totally matter.
“Obviously, having Kevin [Love] and Kyrie out was a huge factor for us,” J.R. Smith said. “Everybody was supposed to step up. Unfortunately, we missed shots, and the rest is history.”
I think we can all agree Warriors-Cavs Part II is set to be much more entertaining because everyone’s healthy. Let’s hope it stays that way for the sake of this habitual and whimsical storyline.