PHOTO: Brad Rempel
I write this Jock Blog some minutes before the Warriors take on the Hornets in Charlotte Friday, and for all I know, Draymond Green will not only help lead the Warriors to victory, but he will help do the team laundry, clean up after the postgame team meal and then help elderly ladies across the street in downtown Charlotte.
I mean, it’s possible, right?
But short of that, the Jock Blog comes to you one more time on the topic of one Draymond Jamal Green in an exhausted, exasperated state — as I was just saying to my pal Steph Curry and his unmistakable body language.
We’ve been through this before. And what’s that definition of insanity?
Not wanting to go insane, since that doesn’t sound very fun, what are we left to do?
I come to you with the question: Is it possible that any remaining years of Steph Curry’s tilt at the windmill should come *without* the stressor of Draymond Green and his Vesuvian on-court presence? Should Steph Curry chase Ring No. 5 with a Warriors team that has moved on from Draymond?
I think it’s worth a meaty discussion for Mike Dunleavy and Joe Lacob, and since Lacob was present Thursday night at Chase when Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, Lacob is probably in an inspired mood. Enough of Draymond taking the Dubs to ejection-filed “Badlands”; he’d like a little more sunshine-splashed “Land of Hope and Dreams” these days.
So many questions come from this, among them:
— Which team would take a 34-year-old Draymond, at $25 million per, and an even more expensive reputation?
— What could the Warriors get in return?
— Would it be wise for the Warriors to part with their defensive heartbeat?
— Shouldn’t the Warriors believe that post-therapy and post-suspension Draymond is worth keeping around, given that Steve Kerr and others say his behavior has improved?
— Then again, what kind of improvement did we see in his inexplicable outburst at Orlando, risking the Warriors a very costly game?
I’ve always been a Draymond guy. From the time he arrived in 2012 and engaged with LeBron James and the Heatles in Miami, to a style of defense so thorough and relentless, I dubbed him on-air “my all time favorite Warrior.” Considering my middle school hoop crush on Bernard King, and my college-era hoop crush on Chris Mullin, this was a bold personal statement. Coaching youth basketball, I’d tell the kiddos that when they watched basketball, “play like Draymond”!
Uh, I haven’t been saying that to the kiddos of late.
It’s a conundrum and a quandary. The truth is, we on the outside don’t have the proper intel on how Steph Curry *truly* feels about his chances to win a championship, or even about his on- and off-court relationship with Draymond Green. A decade-plus and four rings together means a lot more than a fired-off tweet from an angry fan, or a freezing cold take from a radio host. Steph’s reaction in Orlando was weighty, though, and prompts these questions.
The game is in Charlotte tonight. And then a game in San Antonio Sunday.
The final chapters of Draymond Green as a Warrior are unwritten. He holds the pen. What’s he going to write?
Or have you already put the book down? I’m thinking about it.
—30—