Draymond Green Offers Blunt Perspective on Perils of Making NBA Finals

To hear NBA veteran Draymond Green tell it, making the NBA Finals isn't all it's cracked up to be—it's only cool when you win.

Although that might intially sound pretty obvious—professional athletes do not like to lose—the rest of Green's take, shared on the most recent episode of his podcast, the Draymond Green Show with Baron Davis, is an interesting look at the emotional toll of losing in the Finals vs. not making the Finals at all.

"If you want me to be quite honest with you, I personally think making it to the NBA Finals is one of the worst seasons you can have," Green said near the start of the ep, building on comments regarding the New York Knicks. "And the reason being ... going to the NBA Finals and winning an NBA championship, those two things are so far apart. You can get to the NBA Finals and not be close to winning an NBA championship.

"I know that may sound hard for people to believe," he continued, "but those that have won championships will definitely understand what I'm saying. Those that have been there and didn't quite win will definitely understand what I'm saying. Those two things are so drastically far apart."

Green went on to explain that, when a Finals series goes to seven games, the gap between winning and losing feels and seems less apparent. But when a team is defeated, say, two games to four ... at that point, were they ever as close to winning as they thought?

For instance, "even if the Knicks made it to the NBA Finals and didn't win it, that's not some accomplishment to me," he continued. "You get nothing for making the NBA Finals except a couple [tens of thousands of dollars] more than the conference final loser" and a shorter summer.

"You walk with nothing. The [other] team goes on and celebrates and has this incredible summer and you're kind of left stuck trying to figure out 'Were we really close? Do we need to run it back with this team? What's the tweak we need to make? Because we were right there. Or we weren't really right there.'"

So, although making it to the Finals seems great, "if you don't win it, it's almost worse," Green concluded. "You might as well have lost in the first round."

Listen to that full take below, starting at 4:30:

You can see the point the forward is trying to make here. Although it might seem a bit silly at first blush—the idea that losing on the biggest stage in your sport is somehow worse than exiting in the first round—the crux of the argument has legs. Who wants to get that far, put all those extra miles on their body, just to decisively lose? Would it be less taxing, less of an ego hit to know you didn't have what it takes sooner rather than later?

It's an interesting thought experiment. Draymond is a notorious hater, so there could be some of that at play, too. But considering his six NBA finals appearances, he's definitely qualified to speak on the topic.

The upshot—surely most players would rather make the Finals and lose, just to say they have been to the Finals. But when explained from Green's perspective, you can clearly see the perils in that path.