The Warriors are just like us: Enjoying each NBA moment

Draymond Green loves basketball. You can argue about how he ranks among the game’s elite, how he plays and certainly how he handles himself on the court. But one thing you can’t argue is his passion for the game. Draymond Green loves basketball. And, yet, after the Golden State Warriors swept the Cleveland Cavaliers to win their third championship in four years, all Green wanted to do was get away.

“I didn’t want to think about basketball, didn’t want to think about the run, none of that,” Green said at Warriors media day in late September. “Didn’t want to see the trophy.”

After winning the Finals, players typically take turns taking the Larry O’Brien trophy home. Spend time with it, show it off, take pictures with it, whatever they want to do. Green didn’t.

“I wanted no parts of it.”

Right before taking the podium at media day, Green wrote on Instagram that winning the 2018 Finals was the hardest thing he’s ever done in his life and that he didn’t want to talk about last season. Of course, he was asked about the post (a roundabout way of asking him about last season) and he reiterated how the grind of the regular season, the seven-game series against the Houston Rockets and dealing with a fully weaponized LeBron James for four games took a toll on him. “It was the toughest thing I’ve ever been through in my life.”

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This is coming from a guy who, after growing up broke, lives in Emeryville because the cost of San Francisco life offends his otherwise frugal tastes. Who went from second-round pick to All-Star within his first four years of being in the league. From someone who shouldered most of the blame for Golden State’s collapse in the 2016 Finals.

So he got away and checked out Mykonos over the summer.

“It was so tough that I really needed to decompress from that and just get away from it for a while. It wasn’t something that I really wanted to think about. Now we move forward and appreciate what we did last year, but it’s time to try to do that all over again.”

Steve Kerr walked through the tunnel after a February game in Sacramento, head down, exhausted. It was Golden State’s 52nd game of the season, but it felt like their 500th. And they still had 30 left before the playoffs began. They beat the Kings that night, but it wasn’t pretty. The Warriors were sloppy, committed 25 turnovers, and they were slow. They won because they are really, really good at shooting. But they didn’t play better basketball than the Kings.

“When’s the All-Star break?” Kerr quipped after the game. “I was hoping you were gonna say tomorrow.”

It wasn’t for another two weeks.

“It’s painfully obvious that our guys are mentally fried,” Kerr said. “So it’s a good job to just get a win and move on.”

After media interviews, the team got on a plane and flew to Denver for the second night of a back-to-back. This was the grind Green talked about. Stephen Curry took it one step further.

“It kind of sucked, to be honest, in terms of like the vibe,” Curry said at media day this year. “Like we were all trying to figure it out, play at a higher level than we were, but it never really clicked the way we wanted it to. I don’t think anybody wants to go through that feeling again.”

Last season’s goal was clear: Repeat and make history. It’s enough to face the pressure of winning the Finals when anything less is considered a failure, it’s another to deal with the physical toll of four-straight years playing all the way through the postseason. It’s exacerbated when everyone else is trying to find a reason why the Warriors won’t win. To battle complacency, Kerr preached hard work and commitment to detail, but in truth, the Warriors didn’t need it, just like they didn’t need it that night in Sacramento.

This season, the message is much different.

“We’re going to try to move out that narrative as far as how hard this all is, and it is hard, and rare for us to try and do it again,” said Warriors general manager Bob Myers. “We’re going to try to enjoy it. I know that sounds simple. But the goal is going to be to enjoy this journey this year — all of it, the highs, the lows, the in between.”

Easier said than done, sure. What happens when it’s February, and the All-Star break is close but they still have six or seven more games to slog through? What happens when they face injuries? Only time will tell, but there is a systematic effort throughout the organization to establish a new mission statement: Enjoy the moment.

“We are playing with some house money. We won three of the last four championships. Our place in the history of the league is pretty secure,” Kerr said. “I don’t think our guys should feel a ton of pressure. I think they should feel the importance of trying to do it again, because this may be the last time we have this current iteration of the Warriors, just given all the free agents and the money crunch and everything else. So we don’t know what’s going to happen. So why not just go all out and enjoy every step of the way?”

To a man, the Warriors approached the podium and walked the company line.

Andre Iguodala: “Just taking it a day at a time, just trying to enjoy the game.”

Shaun Livingston: “We’ve got to roll with the punches, and hopefully come refreshed that next day.”

Kevin Durant: “I think if you take it a day at a time, just stay in the present as much as you can, that’s what I try to do.”

Klay Thompson: “Going to these different arenas and having a sellout every night is something that we don’t take for granted. So that’s what I mean about enjoying the ride, just don’t try and shortcut it to the Playoffs or the Finals, just try to enjoy every minute we get of this attention because it doesn’t last forever.”

Stephen Curry: “This year we want to really enjoy what we do, and it starts with tomorrow in practice, setting the right tone, having the right excitement and energy and juice.

“There are a lot of things for us to focus on this year in terms of like mini goals that will lead to us winning another championship as well as dealing with the hurdles that will come with just the length of the season.”

One of those mini goals is fitting in DeMarcus Cousins.

His presence has seemingly reinvigorated the Warriors. From general manager to coaches to players, the Warriors are looking forward to incorporating Cousins. They couldn’t believe it when Cousins asked to play for them, and they’re excited to see how he can contribute. With a reputation as a finesse team, Cousins adds a more physical element. It all depends on how his rehab from a torn Achilles goes, but just the idea of folding Cousins into this star-studded lineup is enough to excite the Warriors. Curry imagines running 1-5 pick-and-rolls with Cousins, who he says is “extremely skilled.” Thompson raves about his talent. Durant calls him a basketball genius.

For Kerr, figuring out how to use Cousins will be tough. Then again, come January, it will be a welcome getaway from harping on ball security and defensive rebounds.

“I think it will be fun as a coach and for fans,” Kerr said. “And by the end of the season we’ll be clicking and ready to roll in the playoffs.”

That’s the idea of the mini goals. As the Warriors hit each checkpoint, they’ll level up into the best version of themselves until finally, the playoffs begin. You can see a clear roadmap of how those mini goals lay out: Start the season in earnest, settle on a rotation at center, fully integrate Cousins, then get to the playoffs.

Of course, that’s much easier said than done. Which is why the message is important: Enjoy the moment. Whether that moment is an up or a down, the point is to not take it for granted.

“What we’re experiencing right now, I have to remind myself that this is such a rare time for our organization to have this kind of talent,” Myers said. “Just for me to go to our games. Forget about being the GM of the team, to watch our team practice and play, to watch Steph Curry shoot on this basket. I’m going to remember that for the rest of [my life].”

The new vibe around the Warriors is palpable, and so it is around the rest of the NBA. For as much as Golden State didn’t enjoy the grind of its predictable march to another championship, the rest of the NBA and its fans enjoyed it even less. This time last year the top headline was if the Warriors had ruined the NBA. A bad date between the Warriors and Cavaliers lingered like an unsavory item on a to-do list.

Now, look around. LeBron James is in Los Angeles. Kawhi Leonard in Toronto. The Celtics and Sixers are ascending. Donovan Mitchell is knocking. The Warriors still rule the NBA but the future is here.

This time next year, the Warriors as we know them could be gone. Durant could be in New York. The Larry O’Brien trophy could be up for grabs. Draymond Green may wish then that he had spent more time with it. Green himself could become a free agent in 2020, but he’s not thinking about that yet.

“I’ve never played basketball for money. I play basketball because I love basketball. And those are the things that’s made me successful. I’m not going to switch that up now because that hasn’t been what’s successful for me,” Green said. “What’s been successful for me is my love for the game and my passion and having that drive to want to win. And when you do those things, when you are playing for the right reason, everything else seems to take care of itself.”

So, for now, the Warriors will try to appreciate the moment. They’ve already made history, but we have nine more months until whatever comes next. Enjoy it.