Draymond Green makes astonishing NBA Finals claim ahead of Pacers-Thunder showdown
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Four-time champion Draymond Green has claimed that he would rather be eliminated in the first round of the playoffs than lose in the NBA Finals.
The Warriors star insists it is ‘almost worse’ to make it all the way to the Finals, only to fall at the final hurdle. ‘One of the worst seasons you can have,’ Green said.
The 35-year-old was speaking ahead of this year’s tussle between the Indiana Pacers and Oklahoma City Thunder, which begins on Thursday night.
Green and the Warriors won the NBA Championship in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022. But the forward was also part of the Golden State team that lost in the finals in 2016 and 2019.
‘If you don’t win it, it’s almost worse,’ the 35-year-old said. ‘You might as well have lost in the first round.’
‘If you want me to be quite honest with you, I personally think making it to the NBA Finals is one of the worst seasons you can have,’ he continued on his YouTube show with Baron Davis.
Draymond Green said he would rather be eliminated in the playoffs than lose in the NBA Finals
Shai Gilgeous-Alexander celebrates the Thunder’s win in the Western Conference Finals
Oklahoma City is the heavy favorite to beat the Indiana Pacers in the upcoming NBA Finals
‘Going to the NBA Finals and winning an NBA championship, those two things are so far apart. You can get to the NBA Finals and not be close to winning an NBA championship.
‘I know that may sound hard for people to believe… but those that have won championships will definitely understand what I’m saying.
‘Those that have been there and didn’t quite win will definitely understand what I’m saying. Those two things are so drastically far apart.’
The New York Knicks fell short against the Pacers in the Eastern Conference Finals, losing the series 4-2 and then firing head coach Tom Thibodeau.
But Green insisted: ‘Even if the Knicks made it to the NBA Finals and didn’t win it, that’s not some accomplishment to me.
‘You get nothing for making the NBA Finals except a couple (tens of thousands of dollars) more than the conference final loser… you walk with nothing. The (other) team goes on and celebrates and has this incredible summer.
‘And you’re kind of left stuck trying to figure out: “Were we really close? Do we need to run it back with this team? What’s the tweak we need to make? Because we were right there. Or we weren’t really right there.”‘
The Oklahoma City Thunder are favorites to win their second NBA Championship. They are -700 with FanDuel, while the Pacers are +500 win the seven-game series.
Oklahoma City had the best record in the NBA over the regular season and Pacers star Tyrese Haliburton admitted: ‘We know the odds are stacked against us.’
‘We know the odds are stacked against us,’ Tyrese Haliburton said about facing the Thunder
He played a pivotal role in Indiana’s win over the Knicks in the Eastern Conference Finals
But the guard, who played a pivotal role in Indiana’s win over the Knicks, insisted they ‘want to go through the best team’ to win a first NBA championship.
‘This is the best challenge… this is the best team in the NBA. It’s been the best team in the NBA all year,’ he told ESPN. ‘They’re well-coached. They just do everything so well. There’s no shortcuts to beating this team.
‘We know the odds are stacked against us. It is what it is. We want to be here. We want to play against the best. This is the best. We look forward to the challenge as a group.’
Haliburton added: ‘They’re historically great on both sides of the ball… they have the MVP (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander). There’s so many different things you could name down the list of why they are so great at what they do, why they’re such a great team.’
