Often critical of young players arriving in the NBA, Draymond Green has a very different speech this season. The interior recently requested that the Warriors rookies accompany the team on the road, in order to benefit from their energy. And overall, he is amazed by the quality of the beginners.
“When you look at this vintage of rookies, it doesn’t really look like a vintage of rookies” he explains like this. “Even our two rookies (Brandin Podziemski and Trayce Jackson-Davis), if you throw them in the game, they don’t make the classic rookie mistakes. And it’s the same thing for the Thompson twins (Amen and Ausar) or Wemby. Even Marcus Sasser. They really don’t look like rookies. »
Draymond Green smiles while explaining that the new arrivals will complicate his task…
“I think it’s an incredible vintage. But the Thompson and Wemby twins are bothering me because they’re going to make things more difficult for me to continue making the All-Defensive Teams. (eight times present in the All-Defensive Teams over the last nine seasons), if young people come and defend like that. »
We could also add Chet Holmgren, technically a rookie, even if he had a first blank season after being drafted in 2022.
In any case, the four-time champion (2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022) sees this in a positive light, while he was railing against the lack of defensive desire of young players in recent seasons.
“But I’m happy to see that.” he concludes. “I am happy to see young people arriving in the NBA and accepting the challenge of defending. Too many young people come into this league thinking only about scoring. They only think about that, about how they are going to be able to trigger shots. And that’s such a bad mentality to have. So it’s good to see young people arriving with a different mindset.”
