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As the Golden State Warriors celebrated their fourth NBA title in the last eight years with a massive party in San Francisco, Draymond Green said on the mic during a live broadcast at the start of the parade: ‘Thank you all and it’s always f**k everyone else.’
Green, 32, said following his remarks that he was trying ‘to think of the most controversial thing I can say – like the media.’
Earlier Green already dropped an f-bomb telling the rest of Dub Nation: ‘I don’t know what y’all want me to tell you, that we better than everybody. This has been an amazing year. I told y’all don’t let us win the f***king championship.’
The former Michigan State star went on: ‘Clearly, nobody could stop it. I warned y’all.’ He also said that he would go on with his social media antics saying ‘I warned y’all, so I’m just going to continue to destroy people on Twitter, as I have been, and Instagram stories.’
Green went on to describe the past 12 months as an ‘amazing year.’ He continued: ‘What you appreciate about the journey is the people that you go through it with.’
The power forward added: ‘What brings me the most joy — I know everyone thinks it’s talking s–t — after the first NBA championship is seeing the guys who won it the first time. In your journey, you always want that first-time feeling back. The reality is you never get it again, and the only way to get it again is to feel it through Andrew Wiggins, Jordan Poole, Otto Porter, Belly [Nemanja Bjelica], Moses [Moody], GP [Gary Payton II] … you feel it through those guys and that’s how you get that sensation again.’
Green’s teammate, Klay Thompson, mocked the profanity telling the crowd: ‘Real mature Draymond. This guy’s got the maturity level of a third grader.’
In a separate interview with rapper Mistah F.A.B on NBC Sports, Green dropped another f-bomb asking: ‘This is live TV, right?’ When Mistah replied that it was, Green said: ‘F**k ’em’ before storming off.
During the parade, members of the Warriors could be seen downing bottles of LeBron James’ tequila brand, Lobos 2017.
Green was clutching a bottle of the liquor in another interview, that featured his mother, Mary Babus-Green, in which he discussed his plans for the summer saying: ‘We drinking Lobos, and we telling y’all to shut up. Period.’
In the course of that interview, Green repeatedly told all of the ‘haters’ of the Warriors to ‘shut up.’
In reality, Green struggled to hit his peak form during the finals averaging just 6.2 points in the six game series. He was fouled out three times and missed all of his three point attempts going into the final game.
While in the final game of the series, Green managed two three point shots out of five attempts while also hitting 12 points, 12 rebounds, eight assists, two blocks and two steals.
Green with teammates Klay Thompson and Steph Curry waiting to address the media during the celebrations
Steph Curry’s reward for a fantastic season was a surprise back massage from Green
Green played a full 42 minutes in the Warriors defeat of the Celtics in Game 6 of the finals on June 16
Green proudly displaying a ‘Boston Sucks’ t-shirt during the celebrations
Green said during the celebrations: ‘What you appreciate about the journey is the people that you go through it with’
Draymond Green dances with a member of Jabbawockeez during the celebrations
The Golden State Warriors pose for a group photo before the start of their NBA championship parade in San Francisco
A man lays on Market Street as confetti rains during the Golden State Warriors NBA championship parade in San Francisco
It’s the first time that the Warriors have celebrated an NBA championship victory in San Francisco, previously holding their homecomings across the bay in Oakland
It’s the first time that the Warriors have celebrated an NBA championship victory in San Francisco, previously holding their homecomings across the bay in Oakland.
Monday’s parade, commemorating the Warriors’ six-game victory over the Boston Celtics in the NBA Finals, went through one the city’s major arteries, Market Street, where fans were seen lining up, eating hot dogs and smoking marijuana hours beforehand, according to The San Francisco Chronicle. (Recreational marijuana has been legal in California since 2016)
The Warriors played exclusively in Oakland from 1971 until 2019, when the Warriors moved into San Francisco’s Chase Center.
In addition to Green’s profanity, another memorable incident saw Klay Thompson knock over a woman while running through a group of fans.
Finals MVP winner Stephen Curry was seen puffing on a cigar while wearing a chain carrying his first three championship rings.
‘This is unbelievable,’ he told one television interview. ‘Usually when you get people doing good work and you have good leadership good things happen,.
‘What we do and how we did that is what will live longer than this parade,’ Curry said.
The festivities did not get off to a good start for Warriors star Klay Thompson, who lost his Warriors championship hat in San Francisco Bay as he drove to the parade on his speed boat. The 32-year-old was seen wearing a captains hat afterwards at a pre-parade rally.
‘I underestimated the wind gusts,’ Thompson said later on social media. ‘Took it right off my head.’
From there, Warriors teammates and their loved ones boarded a convoy of double-decker, team-colored buses for the leisurely journey through San Francisco.
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Curry juggles his NBA Finals MVP award, three championship rings, and other hardware during his four championship parade
Golden State Warriors’ Stephen Curry waves as his wife Ayesha and daughter Riley look on during Monday’s parade
Stephen Curry, center, and the Golden State Warriors celebrate the NBA championship during a parade in San Francisco
The festivities did not get off to a good start for Warriors star Klay Thompson, who lost his Warriors championship hat in San Francisco Bay as he drove to the parade on his speed boat. The 32-year-old was seen wearing a captains hat afterwards at a pre-parade rally. (Left) Thompson is seen driving by Alcatraz Island. (Right), he’s seen losing his Warriors hat
Klay Thompson wears a captain’s hat adorned with the San Francisco Giants logo after losing his Warriors cap in the Bay
Stephen Curry (left) wore a necklace adorned with his first three championship rings to celebrate his fourth title on Monday. The parade went right through San Francisco’s main artery, Market Street, following a pre-parade rally
Stephen Curry and Damion Lee, right, ride atop a bus during the Golden State Warriors parade in San Francisco
Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr raises a fist while riding in Monday’s parade through San Francisco
The goal was enormous: Return to the NBA’s mountaintop.
And now with that monumental task complete, the NBA champion Golden State Warriors already have a new target: staying up there for a while.
The victory cigars hadn’t been extinguished after the title-clinching win in Boston, the last celebratory bottles of Moët & Chandon hadn’t been emptied, and the topic — can the Warriors win it again next season? — was already coming up. They have been installed by FanDuel Sportsbook as the favorites for the 2023 NBA title, and with Finals MVP Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green all back it would be foolish to think that their chance at a fifth championship in nine years isn’t very real.
‘It still has not been proven, that when we’re whole, that anybody can stop it,’ Green said.
That’s true, and that’s why it makes sense for the Warriors to carry the burden of being favorites into next season. They know what it takes; they have as many championships in the last eight seasons — four — as the rest of the league combined. The last run that was better than this was put together by Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls, winning six in an eight-year span of the 1990’s.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr — now a nine-time champion — played for the Bulls for some of that run, and has led Golden State to all four of these titles.
‘They are all unique. They are all special,’ Kerr said. ‘I think this one may have been the most unlikely just from the standpoint of where we’ve been the last couple years. A lot of unknowns.’
Former Golden State Warriors player Shaun Livingston gestures as he arrives for the Warriors championship parade
Indeed, there were questions.
The Warriors answered them all. No, the core wasn’t too old. Yes, Thompson would come back from more than 900 days on the sidelines with injuries. And absolutely, Curry can still be unstoppable in the biggest moments.
They took that core and fortified it with a new group of talent. Among those on that list: 27-year-old Andrew Wiggins, the 2014 No. 1 pick who has come into his own and was nothing less than a star in the NBA Finals; Jordan Poole, who turns 23 this weekend and will celebrate as a champion who has blossomed after facing off against Curry in practice all the time; and Jonathan Kuminga, the 19-year-old who got into 86 games and is raved about by teammates.
‘And we ain’t done,’ Thompson said early Friday while appearing on Green’s podcast, The Draymond Green Show. ‘That’s the beautiful thing about it. We got these young bucks behind us and we got the same squad coming back? That’s scary for the NBA.’
Green concurred. ‘It is very scary,’ he said.
They earned that championship moment, after going through an NBA Finals loss in 2019 to Toronto and then two seasons with a combined 54-83 record, a million miles away from being the team that the Warriors demand they be.
The Warriors had the NBA’s worst record in 2019-20 in large part because of roster turnover — Kevin Durant, who was out that whole season while recovering from Achilles surgery, had just left for Brooklyn — and injuries. Thompson didn’t play that season because of a knee injury suffered in the final game of the 2019 finals. Curry played in just five games. It was the reset year.
Warriors teammates (from left to right) Daimon Lee, Moses Moody, Gary Payton II, and Otto Porter Jr. are pictured
Curry smokes a cigar and waves while riding in the Golden State Warriors NBA championship parade in San Francisco
Stephen Curry (center) is pictured alongside his brother-in-law and teammate, Daimon Lee (right), as well as his wife, Ayesha (back left) and his daughter Riley (front left) during Monday’s parade through San Francisco
The bounceback was supposed to be last season, but Thompson had to sit out again, this time because of an Achilles tear of his own. The Warriors lost in the play-in tournament. But seeds were planted for something great; how great, even Golden State wasn’t sure, but Curry insisted something was brewing.
‘You don’t want to see us next year,’ Curry said when the 2020-21 season ended.
Prophetic words.
Thompson came back in January and the Golden State goal was clear — win it all, again. The Warriors have played 24 playoff series with Curry, Thompson and Green together in the last eight years. They’ve won 22 of them; the exceptions being the 2016 and 2019 finals, when injuries took a toll.
This time, there was no stopping the Dubs.
‘I saw it in the beginning of season,’ Thompson said. ‘People called me crazy. I said ‘Championship or bust’ because I saw how we came out of the gate, 18-2. And playing just that Warriors brand of basketball that made us so successful, and then knowing I was going to be inserted in that, I knew we had a chance to do something special, and here we are. It’s so incredible. Wow.’
Training camp is only three months away so the revving-up process for next season will start sooner rather than later. The Warriors know they’ll be right back in the center of the NBA spotlight, playing tons of national TV games, getting every opponent’s best shot, drawing massive attention everywhere they go again.
It’ll be just like old times. For many Warriors, it’ll be a first. For the old guard, the core of four-time champions like Curry, Green and Thompson — plus Andre Iguodala, if he decides to postpone retirement for one more year — it’ll be familiar territory.
‘I think this one is definitely different because of the three years of baggage we carried coming out of that Game 6 in 2019,’ Curry said. ‘I can say it now: I don’t know how many teams could carry that as long as we have with the expectations of comparing us now to teams of past and make it to the mountaintop again.’
His team did.
And next year, they’ll try to do it again.
Stephen Curry holds up his Bill Russell trophy, which he received for winning his first NBA Finals MVP award last week
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