Golden State Warriors: Steve Kerr reveals how Draymond Green embodies late draft value

Steve Kerr talked about the Golden State Warriors selection of Draymond Green and why it was wise to select such a raw prospect at 35 in 2012

Making selections in the NBA Draft outside of the top-25 can be extremely tricky. For the Golden State Warriors, they’ve been pitted in that range for the last five years, given that they have gone to five straight NBA Finals, positioning their owned pick in the final two slots of the first round of the draft.

While the Warriors need to make a decision with their first-round draft pick this year, they also have some second round picks they need to decide how to utilize.

The second round is murky, and identifying useful talent in that round can be a tricky and uncertain process. That will be true even more so this year given that teams can not host players for in-person interviews and workouts due to the current climate surrounding novel coronavirus.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr, speaking on his podcast with Pete Carroll, discussed the main two philosophies that can dominate the decision-making process with second-round picks.

"“If you do your job — which, our scouts do their jobs, they’re really good — you find out an awful lot about a kid and I think where it get tricky is you get far enough down in the draft where you’re kind of saying, ‘ok this guy maybe isn’t skilled enough, but we love his makeup.’ Or, it’s the opposite, right? Like, ‘ehh, makeup’s kind of questionable, but he’s pretty skilled.’ Now, what direction do you go?”"

Golden State is extremely successful when it comes to second-round picks, though, when you consider that they have one of the best second-round picks of all-time in their roster in Draymond Green.

Golden State selected Green 35th overall in the 2012 NBA Draft, and he’s shaped up to be a pure winner and one of the league’s strongest and most intelligent defenders.

Golden State likely doesn’t have the titles they do in this century without Green, and at the very least their road to obtain those titles would be much more difficult.

Kerr recently talked about why they selected Green, even though he was viewed as an extremely raw prospect:

"“If you’ve got a guy who is a competitor and a winner, I think you err on that side, and it’s an easy selection for me to say, just take Draymond Green, right? 35th pick in the draft, you know everybody said when he came out of Michigan State, it’s, ‘well is he a four? Is he a three? I don’t know, but he went to the Final 4 twice and he won two state championships in high school, so he’s a winner. That’s what position he plays, you know? I think when you get to those points in the draft, if you can get a guy who you know is going to compete and fight like crazy, and has a chance to fit in with your group, I think you take that chance.”"

Green certainly is a winner. He’s a decorated athlete at the high school, college, and professional level.

Now, he’s a three-time NBA Champion, three-time All-Star, five-time All-Defensive team member, and a Defensive Player of the Year award winner.

Not only does this give a window of insight into why the Warriors selected Green at 35 in 2012, but it also gives some perspective into the decisions they might make in the 2020 NBA Draft.