On Monday night, Magic Johnson and Pat Riley appeared at an event and spoke about a range of topics. One that grabbed a lot of attention, in particular, was regarding their Showtime Lakers’ chances of beating this current Warriors team that has started the postseason at a dominant 14-0.
Johnson had a provocative answer, saying his team would be able to sweep the 2016-17 Warriors.
Magic Johnson says the "Showtime" Lakers would have swept today's Golden State Warriors. pic.twitter.com/D9wm2T35ZA
— Arash Markazi (@ArashMarkazi) June 6, 2017
Okay well, that’s certainly a bold take. Let’s see what Draymond Green thinks about that (via Sporting News):
Well. That was easy.
Green did explain further, however, and his response was very nuanced and refreshing.
Following via Matt Moore of CBS Sports:
“First off, the game is completely different than it was back then,” he said. “Nowadays, if you can’t shoot a 3 you’re a liability on the floor. That wasn’t the case back then. It doesn’t make sense to me because you’re talking two different games. I’ve never understood it, nor do I get off into it. They were great in their time, we’re great in our time.”
“I think if you have self confidence, you don’t really care about what who’s coming after you is doing,” Green replied. “You want to see them do well. For me, it’s not going to be to try that. I don’t foresee myself doing that. If they’re great, they’re great. Respect what they’re doing. It’s about if you have fulfillment in what you did, instead of ‘We would have done this, we would have done that.'”
That’s a really good way of looking at it. There’s no way we can truly hypothesize which team was better and who would win and then test that theory to prove it, so why bother? (And to Magic’s credit, he’s often been very complimentary of the Warriors and today’s stars) Green is taking the right approach in claiming that he will support the future great teams rather than comparing and contrasting them.
