Draymond Green, Steve Kerr offer their advice to struggling Raptors

When the Toronto Raptors won the NBA title back in 2019, many figured it could signal the official end of the Golden State Warriors dynasty.

Of course, that hasn’t quite been the case.

Sure, the Warriors missed the playoffs in 2020 and 2021 and lost Kevin Durant to the Brooklyn Nets that summer.

Klay Thompson missed back-to-back seasons with ACL and Achilles injuries, and the Warriors went 54-83 over a two-season span.

But the team surged back earlier this year to win their fourth NBA title since 2015, silencing any doubt about whether they had one more championship in them.

Steph Curry won his first NBA Finals MVP, and the Warriors went 16-6 on a playoff run that seemed all too familiar to many NBA fans.

Back in Toronto, it’s been a similarly up-and-down few years since 2019, with the team’s current stretch of a five-game losing streak (and a 2-8 record in their last 10 games) causing a bit of turmoil and divide among Raptors fans.

Yesterday, it was those very same Warriors toppling the Raptors, beating them 126-110 in a game that never really felt all that close, with both teams missing a pair of regular starters out of their lineups (Curry and Andrew Wiggins for the Warriors, Gary Trent Jr. and O.G. Anunoby for the Raptors).

Amid the losing skid for Toronto, there are trade rumours, lineup debates, calls to tank, and calls to fire everyone from Nick Nurse to Drake to Masai Ujiri. After a promising 48-win season in 2021-22, Toronto looks like a shell of the identity they’ve carved out for themselves over the past few seasons.

But a cold stretch of games — or even a bad season — doesn’t always signal that everything is actually going to fail with any given team.

Few players in the NBA know more about being the target of criticism than Warriors forward Draymond Green, the outspoken four-time NBA All-Star.

“You’ll start hearing noise about trades, about ‘this guy shouldn’t be here,’ and ‘that guy shouldn’t be here,'” Green said to a question asked by Daily Hive about the internal dynamics of a losing skid. “If you (stay committed to each other), the game rewards you, and the talk stops.”

Asked Draymond about the #Raptors’ slide and how his #Warriors have dealt with similar stretches:

“You’ll start hearing noise about trades, about ‘this guy shouldn’t be here’, and ‘that guy shouldn’t be here.’ If you (stay committed), the game rewards you and the talk stops.” pic.twitter.com/KCr6FCyKpM

— Adam Laskaris (@adam_la2karis) December 19, 2022

“You can’t let the outside world dictate how you act or [dictate] your attitude towards the game and, more importantly, towards your teammates,” Green added. “I think for us, you just always want to re-centre yourself and re-centre your focus to the game.”

Warriors coach Steve Kerr, who won four titles with the 1990s Chicago Bulls and one with the San Antonio Spurs prior to his coaching career, shared similar sentiments to Green’s comments before yesterday’s game.

“[It helps] when you have great talent like the Bulls did like we do here with great people [who are great] competitors. Guys like Draymond [Green] and Steph [Curry] and Michael [Jordan] and Scottie [Pippen], Tim Duncan, [Manu] Ginobili,” Kerr said in a question asked by Daily Hive. “They understand that a big part of success is blocking out the noise. Today, there’s more noise than ever coming at the players. I think it’s the hardest time it’s ever been to be a professional athlete. We try to take that into account every day, the way we coach them, the way we try to help them.”

Asked Kerr about why his teams have almost always silenced their critics: “They understand that a big part of success is blocking out the noise… Today, there's more noise than ever coming at the players. I think it's the hardest time it's ever been to be a professional athlete.” pic.twitter.com/q5y8lSzLnd

— Adam Laskaris (@adam_la2karis) December 18, 2022

Like his Warriors, Kerr’s Bulls teams of the 1990s dealt with all sorts of challenges to maintain a dynasty— the media frenzy around Michael Jordan, Jordan’s brief departure to play pro baseball, a trade request from Scottie Pippen, and a seemingly never-ending list of unbelievable headlines about the off-court life of Dennis Rodman.

Of course, none of that mattered when they could cap off their dynasty with six titles in eight seasons.

“I think it’s just maintaining your poise and equilibrium in a time where there’s a lot of noise, especially in the modern life that we live in. In the NBA, if you’re struggling, you’re going to take a lot of criticism, a lot of heat,” Kerr added postgame. “Your culture has to sustain when you’re losing, and as long as you have that [you’ll figure it out]. That means the guys have the right approach and things tend to go your way.”

There’s a lot of noise around the Raptors right now and questions about whether they’ve got what it takes to return to the status of NBA contender.

But if they can take any inspiration from the Warriors’ rebirth, and yes, maybe even the 1990s Bulls, maybe they just need some bigger earplugs to get things back on track.

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