Steve Kerr is asking Draymond Green to play a very different kind of game this season, and it starts with one simple instruction: get moving.
“The whole point for him early in camp, get down the floor,” Kerr said. “We don't want him trailing the play.
The biggest adjustment for him. He's trailed the play for us for years. ...
“And when he's down the floor, that could mean he's in the corner. That could mean he's on the wing. He's still gonna be involved in the action.”
For years, Green has functioned like a de facto point guard, either pushing the ball in transition or hanging back as an outlet. Kerr wants that to change. The idea now is for Green to be up the floor immediately more often, which means less time with the ball in his hands and more time in a spot-up role.
That shift comes with a clear reason attached. Green posted the worst turnover percentage in the league last season among qualified players, finishing at 25.5 percent. His assist-to-turnover ratio dropped to 2.08, his lowest since his second season.
Green has always lived on the edge as a passer, but last season the balance tilted too far toward the risk side. Kerr’s answer is part role change, part system change, and part urgency about cleaning up a problem that has dogged Golden State. The Warriors finished 26th in turnover percentage last year.
That’s why the move toward a five-out offense appears tied so closely to cutting mistakes. Green, who has already been told Kerr wants him taking open threes despite a career 32.1 three-point percentage, should spend more time spacing the floor than orchestrating it.
Still, Kerr says the Warriors are not tossing out everything they’ve built. The structure will change, but the familiar pieces won’t disappear.
“We're still gonna have our play calls [after] dead balls, free throws,” Kerr said. “That's kind of a different situation.
We'll still have our sets that we're calling. We'll still see some of the split-cut action that we do.
But we're trying to be more organized, especially in flow, in transition.”
That split-action has long been part of the Warriors’ identity, often starting with a mid-post touch and a screen to free Stephen Curry for a three. But that kind of post-entry work runs against the logic of a five-out setup.
So the big question hanging over this season is straightforward: which version of the Warriors will produce the better offense, the new spacing-heavy look or the old approach?
The first preview arrives Sunday, when Golden State faces the Clippers in a preseason game. The Warriors will start Curry, Brandin Podziemski, Yaxel Lendeborg, Green and Al Horford, with Curry, Green and Horford expected to play only the first half.
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For the guards trying to crack the rotation, that creates a real opening. Brandon Williams and LJ Cryer are among the players who could see a bigger slice of the ballhandling and scoring duties, a chance to make their case for backup minutes behind Curry as the Warriors continue to manage his health carefully after last seasons knee issue. [Read more 🡒]