Before the Golden State Warriors started winning titles, they gained some valuable playoff experience under head coach Mark Jackson. The Warriors won a playoff series with Jackson in 2013 and reached the playoffs again the next season.
Jackson made a mark on several Warriors players in his three seasons as head coach. Draymond Green credited him with instilling a different confidence in the young Golden State core. Green, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson are in their 12th year together with the Warriors. Green talked about Jackson on the latest episode of his podcast The Draymond Green Show.
“Most coaches would have essentially forced him to have a conscious. Mark Jackson fed that like, ‘No dude you don’t think, shoot, what you thinking about, shoot the ball',” Green said. “You're that good of a shooter, this is the best shooting backcourt of all time. So what Mark instilled in us allowed us to become that. Because of the confidence he poured into us.”
The Warriors won the NBA championship the year after Jackson was relieved of his duties as head coach. Curry won his first of back-to-back MVPs and the Warriors won the title following Jackson's departure, but his fingerprints were on that championship team.
Jackson was the coach when Golden State drafted Draymond Green, and Green said that he influenced him to remain an aggressive and high IQ player in the NBA just as he was in college.
Mark Jackson toed the line on several occasions and was in the middle of some controversy more than once as a coach and later as an analyst/commentator. Still, Draymond Green says that he was a good coach and deserves some credit for making the Warriors what they were and are.
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