After Sting of Suspension, Draymond Green Has Something to Prove in Game 6
Kevin
DingJun 16, 2016[/paste:font]
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NBAchampionship if he'd been there.
Green is an overachiever as a result of his utter certainty that he matters.
Of all the ways
Kobe Bryant must be remembered, that's the one we can and should all try to adopt: Be the hero of your own story.
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Green has the same mindset with a different style of game, which is why Bryant developed a respect for Green so quickly, even reaching out via text in the Western Conference Finals. The newly retired Bryant sensed from afar Green's moment of crisis, which Green described as "the first time in my life I didn't respond to critics." Green's Golden State Warriors had fallen into a 3-1 series hole even after Green avoided suspension for his kick to Steven Adams' groin.
Now Green is trying to bounce back Thursday after he
didn't avoid suspension for his shot to LeBron James' groin, which gave him one too many flagrant fouls in the playoffs and forced him to miss Golden State's Game 5 NBA Finals loss.
Green apologized to his teammates and told them it was "the toughest thing" for him to sit through as an athlete.
The funny thing is that his absence made him the hero of the story anyway—at least aside from James and
Kyrie Irving—leading many to appreciate all that Green does for the Warriors.
Yet in this case, Green didn't see it that way.
He had failed to be his teammates' hero, and they're the people he most wants to make proud.
"I learned a lot—as a basketball player, as a man, just things that you have to do," Green said Wednesday. "You can't put yourself in certain positions. One thing that I've already been kind of teaching myself and trying to learn how to do is control my emotions. So really just knowing the position that you're in and adjusting to those positions.
Jason Miller/Getty Images
"I just have to make sure that I'm well-composed when those situations come about, that I control my emotions, that I channel that energy and use it in a positive way to help my team and not in a way to where I may feel like it helps me as a person, me as a man—but hurts my teammates."
This might not be the sort of thing Green can just immediately make right.
The Cleveland Cavaliers have momentum and confidence that they can beat Golden State as long as they're attacking and producing (they are 14-0 in these playoffs when they score at least 100 points).
Given the game is in Cleveland, it's going to be a difficult task for Green to control his fire. Boos get him revving even more than normal, he admits, and another flagrant foul would get him suspended for a potential Game 7 Sunday. Further complicating matters is that after the season-ending injury to Andrew Bogut, Green will have to play big more than usual, putting him in direct opposition to Cleveland's drives to the rim.
The challenge to keep his cool on offense is just as crucial. It's not a natural translation for him to turn pulsating energy into calm jump-shooting, but he's going to have to do that, considering how often Cleveland is going to leave him unguarded to tilt toward
Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.
For all the what-ifs, we do know for sure that Green has every expectation he will come through, and his teammates do as well.
That's why Curry looked at the suspension from the perspective of lionizing Green, who watched Game 5 on TV from an Oakland Coliseum suite during an Athletics baseball game with plans to head next door to Oracle Arena for a trophy presentation and champagne celebration.
"It would have been the ultimate video montage to see him running across from the baseball stadium with a camera following him into Oracle Arena," Curry said. "That was like the dream celebration. But it didn't happen, so missed opportunity there."
Curry is well aware what an attention hog Green has become. Green's doing exclusive material for this outlet here and that outlet there. He broke the news of Bryant's text to him in his own Uninterrupted video from the Oklahoma City visiting locker room.
Would it really surprise you if Green shows up sometime in the offseason at Radio City Music Hall in New York with the Rockettes, putting a ridiculous and self-celebrating spin on the whole controversy over his oft-kicking legs?
Green is really milking his time in the spotlight, and he wouldn't be the first to overdo it to the point of distraction from his real job. But Green's style is to max out every experience; that's part of being the hero in every story.
The Warriors appreciate the approach, because it usually comes with a reminder to everyone around him to not take the moment for granted.
"I've always said," Curry added, "Draymond is the spirit of what we do."
Even though he's in a classic happy-to-be-there situation being off suspension for Game 6, Green's always looking for a log to throw on the fire for himself and the team. With the chance to improve upon last year's six-game Finals run and win it in five gone, Green has grabbed hold of a new goal, one that frankly involves sticking it more deeply to James and the other side.
"We've got an opportunity to do something that I don't know if it's ever been done, where someone—maybe it has with the Lakers and Celts and all those guys—wins a championship on someone else's floor two years in a row," Green said. "We've got that opportunity. It's a fun one."
The boldness is so constant and the mouth so loud that it can be too much to take, except you see in Green's love for the team why the team loves him so.
He isn't a know-it-all. He listens to reason. He's earnest about self-improvement.
And he's even more committed to improving the group.
Garrett Ellwood/Getty Images
Those in this Warriors organization know he touches the team's essence as much as its defensive rotations.
It's why team owners Joe Lacob and Peter Guber were texting him their full support and general manager Bob Myers chose to watch Game 5 with Green in the suite rather than join everyone next door.
Green testified his deep appreciation for Myers' support, but let's not misunderstand which comes first in these kinds of things:
People are there for you because they care about you…but that's because
you have given them reason to care about you.
Bryant had nothing whatsoever to gain by sending Green that message.
He just knows it feels right to him when Green is the hero of his own story.
"I got a text from Kobe, and he said, ‘If making history was easy, why bother?'" Green said three weeks back, just before the Warriors stormed back to win the final three games from the Thunder. "It's 100 percent right. It ain't easy. It's a struggle.
"I gotta make sure it builds character. And we gotta make sure it builds character."
