Draymond Green Says He 'Could Give a Damn' About Warriors Just Making Playoffs

The Golden State Warriors enter the 2021-22 season with high expectations. However, veteran Draymond Green doesn't want the team to just make the playoffs. 

"I could give a damn about making it to the playoffs," Green said when asked about how much pressure is on the Warriors this season. "That's never my goal and that's not going to start being my goal today. You get to the playoffs and you're trying to compete for a championship." 

Green's comments come after he admitted in an interview with The Ringer's Logan Murdock that he "wasn't interested in the game" during the 2019-20 season. 

"It was just a totally different situation that I was dealing with for the first time in my life on top of the abruptness of it," Green said. "You couldn't have told me three months before that I would go from the best team ever to the f--king worst team in the NBA.

"It was frustrating. And it was also a mind-f--k."

The past two seasons have been putrid for the Warriors, to say the least. Golden State is 54-83 in that span and has failed to make the playoffs since it lost the 2019 NBA Finals to the Toronto Raptors in six games. 

Most of the Warriors' struggles can be blamed on injuries. Five-time All-Star Klay Thompson hasn't played a single game since the 2018-19 season because of a torn ACL and then a torn Achilles. 

Star point guard Stephen Curry also missed the majority of the 2019-20 season with a broken hand and missed time during the 2020-21 season with a hairline fracture in his tailbone. 

The Warriors had made five straight NBA Finals appearances from 2015 to 2019, with three of those resulting in a title, before things came crashing down. 

With Curry back to MVP form and Thompson set to return to the court this season, Green and the Warriors are ready to prove they can compete with some of the best teams in the Western Conference, including the Los Angeles Lakers and Phoenix Suns. 

Golden State has the fourth-best odds to win the NBA Finals this season at +1200 (bet $100 to win $1200), per FanDuel Sportsbook. The Brooklyn Nets, Lakers and Milwaukee Bucks are the only teams with better odds.