Draymond Green is never afraid to speak what's on his mind. The Golden State Warriors star usually gets in trouble with the officials because of this, but when it comes to leading his team, Green always keeps the focus on the large goal at hand: winning another championship.

Since the 2014-15 season, the Warriors have won four titles, most recently defeating the Boston Celtics in the 2022 NBA Finals. A decade of dominance in the Western Conference, the Warriors now face their toughest challenge since the 2019-20 season when close to half of their roster landed on the injury report, resulting in Golden State finishing with a 15-50 record.

The Warriors faced off against the Los Angeles Clippers on Thursday night, a game Green and Co. needed to win seeing as they had dropped eight of their last ten games heading into this matchup. Even with the Clippers fighting back most of the second half, the Warriors were able to hold on and pick up a much-needed 120-114 home victory to move to 9-10 on the season.

After the game, Green was asked about the importance of this win over the Clippers and if the Warriors truly have what it takes to stand at the top of the NBA world once again.

“We still have the same belief as we had before and that's to win a championship,” Green told reporters after the game. “We've shown flashes of being that group, and at times, we haven't. But this is a different team and just as I said about the Clippers, you have to build consistency and continuity. We are still in that phase as well, but this is a team that we all believe in and we know what we think this team is capable of.

“We know what it takes to win a championship and we think we have all those pieces and things it takes to win a championship.”

Every season, it seems like the Warriors make a handful of changes to their roster, primarily to their bench. Just this past offseason, Golden State moved on from Jordan Poole and Donte DiVincenzo, adding the likes of Chris Paul, Dario Saric, Cory Joseph, and two rookies they are high on in Brandin Podziemski and Trayce Jackson-Davis.

Despite all the changes the Warriors make to their roster, the same core of Green, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins, and Kevon Looney remains. The experience and chemistry these five players have with one another, as well as everything head coach Steve Kerr has achieved, are the reasons why the Warriors still believe they can raise another banner in Chase Center.

Championship teams are built over the course of an 82-game season. Just because you have the best record in the league or lead the league in a certain category doesn't mean you will necessarily win a championship. The Warriors have had powerhouse teams that seemed to coast their way to the NBA Finals, but that first 2014-15 team was forged through adversity.

As they continue to grow as a team and everyone understands their role this season, the Warriors will begin to rise up the Western Conference standings. Green knows what his team is capable of doing and you can never truly count Golden State out of the championship mix until they are eliminated from the playoffs.