Many think that Draymond Green will never change after countless violent incidents and suspensions throughout his career, but he’s opened up about why things will be different this time.
Green’s suspensions this season for striking Jusuf Nurkic and putting Rudy Gobert in a chokehold were a major wake up call for the Warriors forward.
He recently explained the most important reason for why he wants to make a change for the better.
“It’s fear of letting my family down,” Green told The Ringer. “Fear of letting my kids down. Fear of my kids having to deal with things, more than they already have to deal with just being my kid. Fear of what my wife has to deal with. That’s what it is for me.”
Green’s most recent latest suspension for hitting Nurkic prompted the league to get him counseling, which Green says he’s fully committed to.
“The reality is we all got trauma,” Green said. “How do you deal with that trauma? Sometimes that trauma is touching you, and you don’t even know it’s touching you. You start doing this work, you find shit that you’re like, ‘Hold on, where the fuck did that come from?’
“Now I uncovered this sh*t, now you can’t just leave the sh*t sitting there. Now you got to do the work. You start doing all these things. And you start uncovering sh*t that you did not know you were looking for.”
The 34-year-old is now putting in work behind the scenes, as he is cognisant of the small window he has left to play professional basketball.
“I’m far closer to the end than I am the beginning,” Draymond said. “Do you want the end to look like complete sh*t? Or do you want the end to look closer to how it looked in the beginning? Do you want to leave gracefully? Or do you want to leave like a f***ing a**hole? Do you want your legacy to be a guy who couldn’t contain himself, a guy who couldn’t finish the job? Or do you want your legacy to be a guy who did it his way, yes, but did it the right way? I think that’s what it boils down to.”