Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green fired back at the haters and doubters of Dallas Mavericks superstar Luka Doncic, who had a rather slow start to the 2021-22 season.

The Mavs playmaker was widely criticized early in the season for his rather poor form that affected his play. He was still putting up big numbers, but he was not as impactful as he used to be. Luckily for Dallas, Doncic has since turned a corner midway through the season and is once again playing at the level fans are accustomed to.

Now, Green has come into the defense of Doncic and explained why he struggled with injuries earlier in the campaign. He made it a point to emphasize that it's never easy to come off the season and represent one's nation in the Olympics–cutting short what was supposed to be a long break to rest and decompress.

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“I don’t think people truly understand when you’re coming off the Olympics and you’re trying to find time to rest and then you get injured. So he went through the injuries early on in the season, and I think he had COVID early on in the season, but he’s hit his stride now, and over the last six weeks, we’ve started to see that Luka Doncic again that we’re accustomed to seeing,” the Warriors All-Star added, per Callie Caplan of the Dallas Morning News.

For his part, Luka Doncic did admit that he “relaxed a little bit too much” during the offseason, which is why he reportedly entered training camp in a troubling shape–weighing 260 pounds.

However, as Draymond Green pointed out, it was never an easy task since Luka had so little time to find rest. He knows firsthand how difficult it is to do so having competed with Team USA in the Tokyo Olympics as well, so he understands what Luka was going through at the start of the campaign.

Mavs fans do not have to worry about that now since Doncic is playing incredibly well and appears to be in perfectly good health (unlike the first few months of the campaign when he had to deal with nagging ankle injuries). Hopefully, the trend continues beyond the season as well.