Draymond Green believes in the new-look Warriors, but not everyone on the national stage is buying what he's selling.
Former Miami Heat big man and current ESPN NBA analyst Udonis Haslem doesn't see the Warriors esaping the first round of the NBA playoffs, much less winning the championship in June, as Green guaranteed before Sunday's NBA All-Star Game at Chase Center.
"Man, Draymond [is] smart as hell and crazy as hell at the same damn time, man," Haslem told Molly Qerim, Stephen A. Smith and Shannon Sharpe on "First Take" on Tuesday. "I mean I get it. [You're] breathing life into that locker room. You're breathing life into those guys. [You're] the guy that put the battery in the back, [you're] the guy that leaves that locker room and keeps those guys connected.
"So I understand that, but you got to be crazy as hell to think that [the] Memphis [Grizzlies], to think that [the Oklahoma City Thunder], to think that the [Los Angeles] Lakers, to think that all these teams above you just going to have a meltdown in this second half of the season with 26 [games] left. To think that all these teams in the second half of the season just going to have a meltdown. No, this is when everybody getting primed for the playoffs, this is when everybody about to pick it up and it's going to get even harder now. I understand that you guys have the easiest [schedule] in the West going down the stretch, but right now everybody is turning it on and sharpening their swords and getting ready for the playoffs.
"So ain't nobody going to just let y'all come from the 10 spot, move up to a six [or] seven seed and then go from there. And once again, if you're in that playoff spot, you got to see OKC in the first round, you got to see [the] Denver [Nuggets] in the first round, you got to see Memphis in the first round. You got a better chance of wrestling an alligator than beating any of those teams in a seven-game series right now."
The Warriors (28-27) begin the second half of the 2024-25 NBA season on the road Friday night against the Kings, who have the same record.
Golden State Warriors
Friday's game begins a 27-game sprint to the regular-season finish line for the Warriors, but with six-time NBA All-Star Jimmy Butler in the fold, that race becomes easier in the eyes of Green.
The Warriors are 3-1 in the four games Butler has played since he was acquired in a blockbuster trade with the Heat, and Golden State likely should have beaten the Dallas Mavericks last Wednesday.
Get a weekly recap of the latest San Francisco Bay Area housing news. Sign up for NBC Bay Area’s Housing Deconstructed newsletter.
That small sample size, plus their newfound swagger, gives Green confidence that the Warriors can do the unthinkable and go from the Western Conference's No. 10 seed on Feb. 18 to NBA champs in mid-June.
Green, Steph Curry and the Warriors love proving doubters wrong, but this might be their toughest test yet.
