Draymond Green Learned Most of What He Knows About Basketball From the WNBA
Draymond Green, the Golden State Warriors’ equivalent of a Swiss army knife, is elite at almost everything he does. He’s a top-five defender in the NBA. He shoots 3’s at a 38-percent clip. He notched 13 triple-doubles during the 2015-2016 NBA season, finishing second only to Russell Westbrook, who racked up an ungodly 19.
If Steph Curry is the MVP for a team that won a record 73 regular season games, Green is the glue. Without him, the whirring basketball machine that is the Warriors would come to a screeching halt.
It was surprising to learn, then, that a man who excels at every aspect of the NBA game learned his craft from another league. In a recent profile in Sports Illustrated, Green says he learned the most about how to play the game from the WNBA. From the piece:
“In the NBA there’s always a guy who is only around because he can jump. He doesn’t have a clue about the fundamentals. I learn more from the WNBA. They know how to dribble, how to pivot, how to use the shot fake.”
So impressed by women’s basketball is Green that he likes to wind down at night by hanging out at home and watching WNBA games on TV. The women’s game gets flack for being too boring for the casual viewer—i.e., not enough dunks and killer crossovers—but Green’s comments are a refreshing rebuttal, highlighting, as they do, the WNBA players’ fundamental skills and their tendency to teach young kids how to play the game correctly.
RECOMMENDED FOR YOU
Draymond Green Learned Most of What He Knows About Basketball From the WNBA
Draymond Green, the Golden State Warriors’ equivalent of a Swiss army knife, is elite at almost everything he does. He’s a top-five defender in the NBA. He shoots 3’s at a 38-percent clip. He notched 13 triple-doubles during the 2015-2016 NBA season, finishing second only to Russell Westbrook, who racked up an ungodly 19.
If Steph Curry is the MVP for a team that won a record 73 regular season games, Green is the glue. Without him, the whirring basketball machine that is the Warriors would come to a screeching halt.
It was surprising to learn, then, that a man who excels at every aspect of the NBA game learned his craft from another league. In a recent profile in Sports Illustrated, Green says he learned the most about how to play the game from the WNBA. From the piece:
“In the NBA there’s always a guy who is only around because he can jump. He doesn’t have a clue about the fundamentals. I learn more from the WNBA. They know how to dribble, how to pivot, how to use the shot fake.”
So impressed by women’s basketball is Green that he likes to wind down at night by hanging out at home and watching WNBA games on TV. The women’s game gets flack for being too boring for the casual viewer—i.e., not enough dunks and killer crossovers—but Green’s comments are a refreshing rebuttal, highlighting, as they do, the WNBA players’ fundamental skills and their tendency to teach young kids how to play the game correctly.