Draymond Green told the San Francisco Chronicle’s Luca Evans that he is buying into Steve Kerr’s plan to have him trailing plays less, directing traffic from the top of the key less, and getting up the floor to the corners and out on the wings more. His reason was simple: “If he says something, I trust it.”
The question for the Warriors is whether shrinking the role of a 36-year-old who built a dynasty as the hub is the right move. For a team that starts its season against the Lakers on Wednesday, the answer matters right away.
Last Season’s Turnovers Forced the Change
The problem behind the plan is real. Green’s assist-to-turnover ratio dipped to its lowest mark last season (2.1:1) since he was a 23-year-old backup in 2013-14. By December, the Chronicle’s Sam Gordon had him averaging 3.3 turnovers per game, the highest mark of any of his 14 NBA seasons at that point.
Gordon’s diagnosis is the key to the whole debate. Green’s limited scoring fails to command committed closeouts, leaving his defenders to play the pass. When a defender has no reason to respect your shot, every top-of-key read is a pass into a crowd.
The early results fit the logic. Green averaged 6.3 assists against 1.5 turnovers across four preseason games. Evans reports he found cutters of all shapes and sizes — Stephen Curry, Brandin Podziemski, Yaxel Lendeborg, Georges Niang — with surgical precision while conducting from the wings.
His passing hasn’t gone anywhere. What has changed is where the passes start.
A Corner Spacer Who Doesn’t Scare Anyone
The best case against the plan uses Gordon’s own diagnosis. Green shot 32.6 percent from three on 4.6 attempts per game last season. Moving a shooter that defenses already ignore into the corner doesn’t fix the closeout problem.
It just moves it, and his defender can now roam into Curry’s driving lanes instead of sitting on passes at the top.
The roster also works against the plan. Kristaps Porziņģis has not practiced at all and has no timeline, and with him out of the picture Kerr said he’s “very comfortable” opening the season with Green at center.
A small-ball center sets screens and makes reads on the short roll. That puts the ball back in his hands near the middle of the floor, which is the opposite of parking him in a corner.
And four preseason games against teams that weren’t game-planning for him is a thin basis for calling the change a success.
The Fix Is Real, but the Corner Isn’t the Fix
The plan is right, but not for the reason the corner-and-wing framing suggests. What it actually does is cut out the high-risk improvising: trailing the play, holding the ball up top, forcing passes into tight windows.
Green spacing the floor is a side effect. The thing that matters is his decision-making getting simpler.
That’s also why starting him at center is less of a conflict than it looks. Kerr has said Green’s job includes finding cutters with passes from the wing and making the right reads in the short roll.
Those are quick reads made on the move, not possessions he has to orchestrate. A center who catches on the short roll and moves the ball on is doing what the system wants.
What would change this verdict is the turnover number. Green finished last season at 2.7 turnovers per game, well below where he sat in December. If he climbs back toward that 3.3 mark over the first 15 to 20 games while his assists stay flat, the role change will have been cosmetic.
The second warning sign would be defenses guarding him with someone camped in the paint, ignoring the corner and shrinking Curry’s space. If both happen, the plan has failed. Until then, the preseason evidence and last season’s numbers point in the same direction.
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