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Golden State Warriors engine Draymond Green has no qualms talking about who the best defender of all time is. It's him — bar none.
Yet ask the Warriors star why he thinks of himself so highly and allow some inspiring words to hit you right in the feels:
“As a competitor, if you're trying to do something meaningful, if you don't have the mindset that you're the best ever, you've failed already,” said Green ahead of Thursday's Game 1 during the NBA Finals media availability, per Tomer Azarly of ClutchPoints. “So if you don't have the mindset that you are the best reporter ever, then you've already failed. That's been my mindset since I can remember, that will be my mindset as long as I can remember anything. That I am the best ever at what I do. Every day that I step on the basketball floor, I will strive to be that, but my mindset will always be as such as I am the best to do what I do. That'll get me a shot at being the best.”
Green would continue imparting knowledge, stating that greatness starts with believing in it first, which is something he has done through a major stretch of his professional career:
“Before you can even reach anything, you have to believe it. You don't just mistakenly become great at something,” said Green. “You probably at one time or another believed that you could be great at that, and then you work to be great at that, and you reach that greatness. But you don't mistakenly become great. And then you start to believe, ‘Oh man, I'm great at that.' Nah, you believed that before, and you worked to get that, so I always believe that, and I work every day to reach that.”
The former Defensive Player of the Year seemed to have dropped off from his stalwart-level dominance during the regular season, but here he is again for a fifth straight postseason showing he's still every bit deserving of that title.
Green recently said “there are 82-game players, then there are 16-game players” — classifying himself as part of the latter, a rarer breed that peaks in the midst of high stakes in competition.
Toronto Raptors head coach Nick Nurse argued Kawhi Leonard should be in that same conversation, and maybe he's right, as Leonard won two DPOY awards before Green won his first. But in the Warriors' mind, Green is the true god of defense and one who has proved absolutely vital to their run in this postseason.
