NBA Finals: Draymond Green doesn't view Warriors' season as a failure
The brash All-Star remains says title or not, it's "been a great season for us"
By
Matt Moore
•
2 min read
The Golden State Warriors won 73 games, the most in NBA history. They finished with the most wins in NBA history across the regular season and playoffs. They featured the first unanimous MVP in NBA history.
They did not win the NBA title.
It is going to be a struggle in the coming days and months to find perspective on where this team stands after dropping Game 7 to the Cavs, 93-89. You can't take away their amazing regular season that defied history. You can't remove the stench of losing a 3-1 series lead with two games at home and being essentially taught a lesson by LeBron James.
So do the Warriors consider it a failure? Here's what Draymond Green said after the game:
"I think it's been a great season for us. Obviously everybody will say, 'Oh, man, they won 73 but they didn't win a championship.' We didn't. But I think this team accomplished a lot of great things individually and as a team, and those things can never be taken away. We set up and we had a goal at the beginning of the year to repeat, and that goal we failed, but I don't look at this entire season as a failure because there's been too many great things that happened to this team and to this group of guys, to this coaching staff, to this organization."
Green doubled down on the idea of it not being a failure.
"So it's been an amazing year," he continued. "We just failed at one goal we had, but this whole season isn't a failure to me. We accomplished some great things. We didn't reach the end prize, but there will be more years for that."
So what did Green say on the subject earlier this year?
Here's what he said in April:
"In Chicago, they have a championship banner that says, '72-10,' " Draymond Green said. "If we don't win a championship, we're not posting a banner that says, God willing, '73-9,' unless we can win a championship. So as bad as I want this record, we need to get something else to go along with it."
Source: Golden State Warriors laser-focused on ring (and 73 wins) - San Jose Mercury News.
So I guess there's no banner coming for that season. Most of the Warriors maintained that the title was the important thing. It's fair for Green to say that the title was only "one of the goals." But the Warriors didn't enter the season with goals of winning 73 games or opening with 24 in a row. They had a shot, and they went for it. But in the end, it rings hollow. Players play for titles. It's not that the Warriors were failures. Green's right that that narrative is false.
It's that the Cavaliers were better. In the series that everyone will remember far more than any individual regular-season win the Warriors rattled off against the Hornets or Kings or Lakers, they'll remember the Cavaliers overcoming this legendary team. The end result of Golden State's historic greatness is only to validate the superiority of LeBron James and the Cavaliers. Them's the breaks.
What Green and the Warriors decide to learn from this experience, how they respond, will be one of the most fascinating questions headed into next season.
