“The Goal Is to Just Not Look Like You”: Draymond Green Claps Back at Charles Barkley Over Heated Warriors Debate

At this moment, the Warriors’ cap space is stretched to give Stephen Curry and Draymond Green the depth to make another run. However, Dray says their goal post has shifted. Now the ultimate benchmark for his team’s transition is to avoid the fate of the Rockets at the tail end of Barkley’s career.

Draymond Green & Co. have learned from Houston’s Charles Barkley experiment

Because of the failed experiment of a Barkley superteam, and because his newly-reignited bestie, Michael Jordan was still in the league, the Rockets never recovered till around 2004 when Chuck and MJ were retired and the team added new talent like Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady. But the Golden State Warriors aren’t relying on external factors to sustain the organization.

While the exchange was wrapped in typical Inside the NBA banter, Draymond Green immediately outlined the deeper, more realistic sentiment within the Warriors organization. “Whether we win a championship or not, I think as you get older you have to redefine what’s success,” Green explained. “Still the most sellouts in the NBA. Still the most national TV games in the NBA. And you just want to give yourselves a chance. Success may not be for us at this point a championship. That’s the way it goes.”

Green claims after four championships, they’ve redefined success as securing the future. “Once we leave this organization, it’s still in a great space where they have the pedigree and they can try to build on that.”

That looming finality is complicated by the Warriors’ massive financial commitments. As Green tells the Inside Guys, the Dubs are operating on a projected $160 million payroll that is top-heavy. Curry remains the highest-paid player on the roster, set to earn $62.6 million, while veteran forward Jimmy Butler is owed $56.8 million. Green himself holds a $27.7 million player option that league insiders expect him to decline to negotiate a more cap-friendly, multi-year extension unless the Warriors move him elsewhere.

Everything also depends on if Steve Kerr is staying. To compound the problem, the team is facing heavy injuries to Jimmy Butler and Moses Moody.

With nearly half of their salary cap bound to the injury report, the path back to title contention is steep. Yet, Green insists that keeping the franchise’s competitive pedigree intact is the ultimate priority.

The post “The Goal Is to Just Not Look Like You”: Draymond Green Claps Back at Charles Barkley Over Heated Warriors Debate appeared first on EssentiallySports. Add EssentiallySports as a Preferred Source by clicking here.

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