What if every NBA player spoke as candidly as Draymond Green?

Draymond Green is known for speaking his mind. What would it sound like if every player in the NBA spoke as freely and honestly as Green?

In our current social, political, economic and climate-climate, absolute honesty should be what we’re demanding of everyone at all times. Things are going in a dark direction and there isn’t time for waffling, yet a great waffle iron remains looming over most of our discourse, a filter we find the need to force what we say through.

This is especially true in pro-sports, where hyperbole and platitudes can seem as essential as the right equipment, basketball no exception. That’s why Draymond Green coming clean in a moment of frustration after the Warriors lost another game in a season off to a rough start was so refreshing. After a bit of an on-script preamble, Green paused, seeming to consider something, and then said the thing most of us were thinking, “The reality is we f*****g suck right now.”

Just like that, Green showed us an honest road less traveled, one rife with exacting personal observation and also, laughs! What if players around the league took Green’s example and started speaking out in similarly honest ways? What kind of time-saving pronouncement, beautiful insight, and recently Windexed windows into the psyches of some of our favorite players could we expect? Let’s imagine.

Kyrie Irving: “‘Mood Swings’ was a weird way to say there are some days when everyone you talk to seems like an idiot, you just got a screener for Hobbs & Shaw and autumn nor’ easter season has started up in New York, but everybody’s gotta make a living.”

Ben Simmons: “I stopped drinking so much water this year because my 2K player gave me a complex, it’s always sweating, always wet.”

Nikola Jokic: “The Joker was horrible.”

Terry Rozier: “I DO wish I’d watched a single Charlotte game before I came here, honestly I mixed them up with the Hawks.”

Chris Paul: “I made one of those cut-out letter ransom notes to send to The Oklahoman [local paper] saying I’d been kidnapped and wouldn’t be playing until my salary was bought out as ransom. I chickened out sending it.”

John Wall: “I fell down in my house okay? Was running to stop the microwave on a bag of popcorn I could smell starting to burn and BOOM, tripped on the one step up into the kitchen from my gorgeously sunk den. That’s how I ruptured my Achilles. I know the exact same thing has happened to you but for some reason, you just stubbed your damn toe.”

Marcus Morris: “I keep trying to get The Twinaissance to happen. Robin and Brook get to be back together, why not us?”

Patrick Beverley: “I would like to petition the league to bring the Jazz’s stadium down a few thousand meters in altitude. There must be an empty gulch lying around somewhere out there. I get altitude sickness every time we play there and I’m not the only one, I’m just the only one brave enough to say it.”

Pau Gasol: “It’s been a hard transition. CJ is kind of the foodie of the team, and he knows I like to go out to eat, so he took me to this place he said was tapas to cheer me up. It was different granolas. Granola tapas. I just said to myself Pau, only a couple more years and you can get back to Europe.”

Devin Booker: “No one knows my age, not even me.”

Anthony Davis: “I’m a real Star Child. I love the Hollywood Stars. Since I got to L.A. I’ve got a photo with the Julia Roberts star. The Godzilla star. The Orlando Bloom star. Bee Gees star. Keanu Reeves star. Pitbull star. Dolly Parton star. I better get to work if I want to get a photo with all of them before the season is over!”

P.J. Tucker: “Yeah I’ve been playing a bit less physical, I’ve been getting less sleep. I spent all summer driving around topless in different beautiful convertibles and it’s been hard getting back to the regular-season routine.”

Joel Embiid: “Why did I go for [Karl-Anthony Towns] eyeballs in that fight? Because I wanted them. They’re beautiful.”

James Harden: “When it comes down to it I talk to the guys on the team the same as I’d expect them to talk to me. Do we want extraordinary things every night? Of course. But you gotta be realistic. That’s why I say, I’m going out there and I’m going to score 59 points. Let’s just have a regular night.”

Jayson Tatum: “The Boston jokes get annoying, especially the apples one. I don’t like those apples, any apples. I hate fruit.”

Fred VanVleet: “I feast on pain.”

Lonzo Ball: “I actually haven’t heard from my dad at all. Not cause he’s mad. He’s just always thought it was long distance to make a call outside of California, he’s very frugal that way.”

Larry Nance Jr.: “Some of the guys started teasing me, calling me Harry Nance Jr. after Harry Connick Jr. You know, I laughed along with them because being an athlete, you need to make certain sacrifices, but I’ve been given better nicknames.”

Jimmy Butler: “It was an accident. I had just come back from a trip out west and the alarm settings on my phone were the wrong time zone. I didn’t even realize it until I got to the gym and no one was there. And you know that feeling, like you’re already somewhere and it would take just as long to go back? Plus the chef gets in pretty early so I figured alright, get eggs the way I like them for once and not have to argue with anyone about the toaster settings for how toasted to toast the toast. Have a coffee. Watch the sunrise. Of course, then it became this whole thing.”

Meyers Leonard: “In order to keep up with Jimmy I decided to stop going home after practice. I sleep in the room where all the basketballs get stored in the bags. I have a lot of dreams about being a giant, mothering bird. I think it’s helping my game.”

Marco Belinelli: “I don’t trim my beard. It stays this length, always. Since I was a boy.”

Denzel Valentine: “Valentine, there’s a lot of expectations. I wish I was Denzel Halloween, or Denzel May Day. Less pressure.”

JaVale McGee: “Am I the nicest guy in the league? Absolutely not. I’m nicer.”

Aaron Gordon: “[Stuff] was hard to work with [in the Dunk Contest], super tough. I’d think we had nailed it in practice and he’d chase me up and down the court on that hovertrax, screaming. Honestly, I could do those dunks in my sleep. I still do. I mean I have nightmares about them.”

Goran Dragic: [On his 2020 free agency] “Scuba is my other great passion, so it would be very difficult, a very tough decision, to leave Miami.”

D’Angelo Russell: [On the current state of the Warrior roster] “It’s a bit like a haunted house? Like I came here, expecting all these rooms to be filled, but then it’s time to move in and suddenly the house is empty, there’s blood dripping from the ceiling, some curse is trying to rob you of your youth and vitality. But living in the Bay is tight.”

Jonas Valanciunas: “It should be turtleneck time so I miss Toronto. I love the seasons.”

Patty Mills: “It’s been great having [Tim] back. We’ve fallen back into old routines. He makes me pick him up and drive him to practice. He calls me late at night to get me to explain the plot of movies and TV shows, any movie, any TV show. He keeps stealing my clothes and taking them to his tailor to get them to let down the hems. Yeah, I love it.”