Draymond Green has gone in depth about why he thinks the Warriors starters that played for the preseason Hawaii game are a winning combination.
The Warriors starters preseason opener in Hawaii included Draymond Green, Steph Curry, Brandin Podziemski, Yaxel Lendeborg and Al Horford and Green had a lot to say about this combination.
“Steve Kerr said in our first preseason game that our starting lineup would be Steph, BP, Yaxel, myself, and Al Horford,” Green. “This is kind of how we’ve been running out in camp and it’s been good. It’s more size than we’ve had in a long time between Al and Yaxel. Those guys are, obviously we know Al’s size, Yaxel’s big as hell. Yaxel’s like 6’10. I’m bigger than what you think. I’m 6’6… 6’7. BP’s 6’6, 6’5-6’4, and Steph’s a very tall 6’3. So, it’s more size than we’ve had in the Warriors lineup in quite a bit, which I’m very, very, very excited about because when you have more size on the floor, it helps in multiple different ways than you can imagine. And so, I think that is good for us. This group has been building up a lot of chemistry and learning to play with each other.
“And the thing that I love most about this group is each guy that you see named in that lineup has a great deal of basketball knowledge. Starting with Yaxel, the rookie, he really sees the floor sometimes too good. And what I mean by sometimes too good is so Yaxel is a great scorer and he’s a really good scorer who I think ultimately has the potential to become a great scorer.
“However, Yaxel has this issue that most scorers don’t have, but some do. Jimmy Butler has the same issue. Meaning they see the floor so well that when you want them to have tunnel vision and go score, they see the floor so well. And that’s Yaxel. And so I said all of that to say, obviously, Yaxel sees the court very well. We know Steph sees the court very well. We know BP sees the court well. We know I see the court well. And obviously, Al’s been seeing the court for 20 years. We know he sees the court well. So I love the collective IQ of this group. Also, a very switchable group. Al can switch on the guards. Obviously, I can switch on the guards. And with Yaxel at the 3 makes it a switchable group to where you can switch on to bigger guys and cover some things up. So, I really like this group.
“The chemistry that we’ve been building in practice has been great. But ultimately, I think you have shooting in this group. I think you have defense in this group. I think you have playmaking in this group. I think you have a high IQ in this group. So, I like the group and obviously there will be some, it’s Day 4 of training camp, there will be growing pains and you have to figure it out, but ultimately, really like this group and what this group could bring to the floor for this team, and that’s how we will be rolling out. My gut tells me that it would be Kristaps Porzingis, but obviously, Kristaps is dealing with a health issue and we don’t know when he’ll be back. So Al in Year 20 is starting off for us and I love it. Al’s been playing great and as I told you all yesterday, couple days ago, Al is in incredible shape and ready to go. So I love it and I think this group is doing a great job of building chemistry.”