Draymond Green defends Nick Young after Kenyon Martin’s 2018 NBA title critiques originally appeared on NBC Sports Bay Area
Former NBA guard Nick Young was only on the Warriors for one season, but he helped Golden State win its third title in four years in 2018.
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And though Young often gets some flak on the “Gil’s Arena” podcast for his role on that team, Draymond Green wants to make it clear that Young was a key contributor during the Warriors’ title run that year.
In Friday’s episode of “The Draymond Green Show,” the Golden State forward issued a rebuttal to clips he’s seen featuring former NBA players Kenyon Martin and Rashad McCants, during which they antagonize Young. Green already had responded to Martin’s shots directed at Green himself earlier in the same podcast.
“But one thing I want to share with Kenyon Martin and Rashad McCants,” Green explained, “you know, a couple of guys who try to attack Nick Young about his NBA championship, is this. I know you guys don’t understand what it means to win an NBA championship. And because of that, you guys attack Nick Young because y’all don’t know what it takes. So, I’m going to share with you all non-champions what it takes to win an NBA championship.”
In his 15-year NBA career, Martin reached the NBA Finals twice with the New Jersey Nets but fell short in both attempts. McCants, meanwhile, failed to reach the playoffs during his four-year career.
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“So, in an NBA championship, you have your guys who have to deliver on a roster,” Green continued. “Me, Steph [Curry] and Klay [Thompson], we had to deliver. You had to. And then you have all your guys who play a role. What role players do in the NBA playoffs en route to NBA championships … what I like to call them is swing players, as opposed to role players. I like to call them swing players.
“What do I mean by swing players? Your job as a role player throughout an NBA championship run is — it’s easier said than done, but the concept is simple. Your job is to swing one series. And what I mean by that is, you be the piece in one series that swings the series, because we know what Steph is going to do. We know what Klay is going to do. We know what Draymond is going to do. We know what they’re going to bring to the floor. We need one player that we’re not necessarily expecting to do X to swing the series.”
Green went on to highlight Young as the swing player who helped push Golden State over the top in a hard-fought Western Conference Finals that season; the Warriors needed seven games to defeat the Houston Rockets before sweeping the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals.
“And so when you go look at our championship run that Nick Young was a part of, Nick Young was the swing player in the Houston series,” Green said. “In Games 6 and 7, Nick Young was one of the primary defenders on James Harden. Nick Young hit big threes. He swung the series for us. Guess what? Job done. When you talk about winning a championship, he swung the series. That’s his job as a role player to swing one series. He did that.
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“So when you guys try to say, ‘His championship doesn’t matter, he rode, he just got a ring.’ No, he didn’t. What he did was swing a series, but because you guys never won a championship, you don’t quite understand that concept.”
As expected, Green didn’t pull any punches in his comments defending his former teammate. But as a four-time NBA champion himself, it’s hard to argue with anything he said.
