SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – The Golden State Warriors Draymond Green and general manager Bob Myers sat down with ESPN Senior NBA Insider Adrian Wojnarowski on the WOJ podcast to discuss the authentic bond the pair have.
Green reflects back when he first arrived in Oakland and how they players would pass out free tickets to the game to those who were riding Bart.
“People were turning down free tickets my rookie year. Now I complain about the price I have to pay for tickets when I have to buy extra ones. So, it changed a little bit,” Green joked.
Wojnarowski asks the two when did notice the Warriors were becoming something bigger than they anticipated.
Myers explained, “The first championship I still don’t understand it. It was overwhelmingly surreal.”
“For me as a player, the 2015 season finals, we were just wrapped up in it having fun. There was no expectation for us to win the finals, ” Green said.
Golden State went on to win two more championships shortly after in 2017 and 2018.
Wojnarowski asked the duo about their unique relationship.
Greenopened up and said, “That’s a guy I always a call. He plays a much different role for me in my life than the general manager of a basketball team. He plays such a bigger role in my life … someone I can get the truth from in almost like a life coach, or an older brother.”
Myers chimed in and added how having relationships with his players is important. “I think I work for the players, I work for them, that’s how I look at it. I wanna help them. I don’t even think we should get a ring, I didn’t play basketball in the games. I just want to help Draymond Green win a championship or whoever comes through here. To give them that, to feel like I helped them do something … beyond that what I care about, is my relationships with people who come through here.”
“This business is so hard to maintain relationships. It is so hard because of the public component of it, the competitive part of it. But what I love is had I not been in basketball, you think I’m ever meeting a Draymond Green in my life?” Myers explained.
Myers reflected back on his time during the 2018-19 season when Green and Durant got into an altercation. Myers tells Woj and Green how he feared during that time he would lose the relationship he had built with his players.
Woj then turns the question to Green if he believes that management should even get involved when an argument happens between players.
Green explains, “In most situations management doesn’t know the players. So you’re trying to manage personalities, manage relationships that you don’t know and so in turn you get in the way you mess it up even more. Our situation is different where we all have relationships.”
The Golden State Warriors will face the Los Angeles Clippers in the season opener at Chase Center.