Draymond Green is 29 and in his eighth season in the NBA, and he says he still has room to grow and improve. In fact, Green believes he still has not hit his peak as a basketball player.
Green spoke with ESPN’s Sam Alipour for an article that talked about Green’s business interests owning some fitness gyms in Michigan and the Midwest. In the article, Green said he gave up shots to accommodate the Golden State Warriors’ acquisition of Kevin Durant. While that cost him a role on the team as a scorer, it helped the team win championships, so he says the trade was worth it. But without Durant around, Green has been working on his game and says he is still ascending as a player.
“I’m definitely not at my peak. I have so much room to grow, new heights that I can reach — like becoming a 40% 3-point shooter. That’d be amazing, right? My shooting dropped off the last couple of seasons, but it’s tough when you’re taking only two or three 3s a game. My percentages were a lot higher when I took more,” Green says.
The numbers actually are inconsistent with Green’s claim about his percentages being higher when he takes more threes. In his best season, 2015-2016, Green made 38.8 percent of his threes on 3.2 attempts per game. For his career, he’s made 32.2 percent on threes. And he’s only making 28.6 percent of them this season.
We love Green’s desire to improve and the confidence he expresses in himself, but we doubt his ability to reach this particular goal year-in and year-out.
