Bob Myers discusses Golden State Warrior Draymond Green’s suspension

Former Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers doesn’t think the Golden State Warriors have much of a chance without Draymond Green.

But that doesn’t mean it’ll be an easy transition once the mercurial forward returns.

“Draymond Green is such a good defensive player and has been such a great leader — that’s been tested lately — and there’s a void, I mean that’s the truth, there’s a void without him,” Myers said on Wednesday on ESPN’s “NBA Today” show.

Green was suspended indefinitely on Dec. 13 following his ejection for a flagrant blow to the head on Phoenix’s Jusuf Nurkic. He had already been suspended once before this season for an altercation with Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert.

Now one of ESPN’s NBA analysts, Myers implied that he doesn’t think the Warriors can be a true title contender without Green. 

“6-4 [the Warriors’ record since Green’s suspension], I don’t think that’s real. I think that’s a little bit of a mirage. I don’t think they think they’re onto something without Draymond Green,” Myers said.

But that doesn’t mean Myers thinks plugging Green back in will be easy when he returns, either. In fact, it might make things harder for the Warriors coach Steve Kerr.

“It takes energy to deal with these things. It takes energy to have to lose a player for a limited amount of time, to bring them back into the fold. Steve Kerr’s trying to figure out the rotations. And when Draymond gets back, that kind of all starts over again,” Myers said. “… And now they’ve got to come back, when he comes back, when that is, and figure it out again, and it’s just exhausting.” 

When that return will happen is still unknown, but ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski reported on Thursday that Green is likely to report to the Warriors facility in the “coming days to start ramping up to resume play again,” though Wojnarowski made it clear that no official timetable has been set for Green’s return and that he will miss his 11th consecutive game when the Warriors host the Denver Nuggets at Chase Center on Thursday night.

Myers drafted Green in the second round of the 2012 NBA Draft in one of his first moves as general manager. Together they became core pillars of a Warriors team that won four championships. But Myers often had to navigate around Green’s many suspensions, which sometimes came at incredibly inconvenient times.