Steve Kerr's Plan for Draymond Green: Shoot When Open
Steve Kerr has seen enough of empty possessions and wild turnovers. This season, he wants something simpler from Draymond Green: when you’re open, shoot it.
On the Tom Tolbert Show, Kerr laid out the plan with unusual bluntness. The Warriors, short on top-end talent and margin for error, can’t afford to waste trips down the floor.
“We have to cut back on the turnovers. I want Draymond shooting the three when he’s open,” Kerr said. “When he shoots a three, he may not be a super high-percentage shooter, but possessions are good for us when he shoots.
“Because, number 1, it’s worth three. Number 2, we get offensive rebounds. Number 3, there’s a flow to the game that has to happen: if someone is open and they shoot it, the game keeps moving.”
That’s the crux of Golden State’s adjustment. Defenses still tilt violently toward Stephen Curry, trapping, blitzing, and loading up to take away his airspace. The trade-off is familiar: Green, standing alone beyond the arc, often hesitates, surveys, and tries to thread one more pass. Those extra beats have too often led to chaos and giveaways.
Kerr wants to strip that indecision out of the equation. Catch. Rise. Fire. Live with the numbers, trust the math, and trust the system.
A Different Kind of Make-or-Break Year for Draymond
The stakes for Green go well beyond shot selection.
He signed a one-year extension this offseason worth just under $30 million, a hefty number for a franchise already straining under the financial weight of trying to keep Curry surrounded by enough help. With Jimmy Butler now in the fold alongside Curry, Golden State still needs to spend to upgrade a roster that no longer overwhelms teams on talent alone.
That’s where the uncertainty around Green’s future sharpens. It is widely expected that the Warriors will not come close to matching this season’s salary to bring him back again. If Green wants to retire in a Warriors jersey, a significant pay cut almost certainly awaits. If he wants one more big deal, he may have to find it elsewhere.
He has already admitted on a recent podcast that he nearly left for the Memphis Grizzlies a few years back. The idea of him in another uniform is no longer unthinkable. It’s a live possibility.
So this season becomes a showcase and a test. Green needs to hit threes at a more respectable clip, not to turn into a splash brother, but to punish defenses just enough to keep the floor honest. At the same time, he has to maintain the defensive edge and playmaking genius that made him the heartbeat of a dynasty.
Anything less, and the market — including Golden State — will be ruthless.
Complicating matters is the presence of rookie Yaxel Lendeborg, a promising power forward prospect the Warriors drafted with an eye on the future. If he develops quickly, the front office suddenly has a cheaper, younger option at a position Green has defined for a decade. That’s not a replacement yet. It is, however, a shadow on the horizon.
Warriors Searching for a Path Back
Around all of this sits the central question for the franchise: how does this team actually win enough to matter again?
For that, the checklist is unforgiving. Curry has to stay healthy after missing significant time last season. Kristaps Porzingis, whose availability has so often betrayed his talent, must give Golden State a full, impactful year. Butler, recovering from a torn ACL, needs to be back by midseason and playing at a high level to give the Warriors a second perimeter star with real two-way bite.
Even if all of that breaks right, nothing is guaranteed in a Western Conference stacked with younger, deeper, more athletic contenders.
That’s why Kerr’s message to Green — and to others like Brandin Podziemski — cuts to the core. Status quo won’t cut it. Podziemski, like Green, will be asked to stretch his game, to do things he hasn’t consistently done if he wants to keep a starting role.
For Green, that evolution starts 23 feet from the basket, with defenders daring him to decide. For years, his answer has been to orchestrate, to create, to pass up the shot for the “better” play.
This season, Kerr is telling him the better play might just be the one everyone in the building expects him to avoid.
If Draymond leans into that and delivers the two-way season his contract year demands, he might not just change the Warriors’ offense. He might change the ending of his Golden State story.
