Steve Kerr has spent more than a decade figuring out how to get the best out of Draymond Green. Their relationship has had its tense moments, including a heated sideline altercation last season, but the two appear to have moved past it. Now, as the Golden State Warriors prepare for another season built around Stephen Curry, Kerr has already decided to tweak Green’s role for the better.
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This comes months after Green suggested Kerr hampered his offensive development. The veteran believes he could’ve contributed more as a scorer at various points in his career, something that even Kevin Durant once criticized, but his responsibilities shifted as the Warriors’ roster and priorities evolved. Kerr now has a clearer plan for what he wants from Green going forward.
“Yeah, he has to cut back on the turnovers,” Kerr said on The Tom Tolbert Show. “I want him shooting the three, and when he’s open, when he shoots the three, he may not be a super high-percentage shooter, but possessions are good for us when he shoots. Because, number one, it’s worth three. Number two, we get offensive rebounds. Number three, there’s a flow to the game that has to happen: someone’s open, and they shoot it. The game keeps moving.”
Kerr also revealed that he had recently spoken with the Warriors veteran about the changes, around the time Green inked his most recent one-year, $27.7 million extension.
“I went to his house maybe a month ago in LA, and we sat and had lunch and had a great conversation and talked about these things,” Kerr added. “He knows there’s going to be some changes, and he’s always going to be himself. And there’s going to be good and bad that comes from that, and we’re okay with that.
“It doesn’t mean we’re thrilled with every single thing he says, but I think my job is to try to help him be the best version of himself as a player, and sometimes that might include, ‘Hey, maybe let’s pull back on this thing or that thing.’ Yeah, and that’s really hard. A hard thing to pull off with Dray because he is who he is.”
The numbers explain why Kerr wants Green to be more careful with the ball. He averaged 2.7 turnovers per game last season, slightly up from 2.6 the year before. Green also bagged 5.5 assists per game, showing why turnovers are part of the trade-off when he is given playmaking responsibility. Kerr’s challenge is to reduce the mistakes without taking away the passing instincts that make Green vital.
This is not a new concern for the head coach. Earlier in the 2025-26 season, Kerr had already asked Green to clean up that part of his game. Green responded by committing only 15 turnovers over a nine-game stretch, or 1.7 per game, compared with 3.3 per game during the first two months of the season.
The three-point issue is just as clear. Green shot 32.6% from deep last season while attempting 4.6 threes per game. That is not the profile of a knockdown shooter, but Steve Kerr does not need him to become one. This comes months after Green questioned whether Kerr had limited his offensive growth.
“As much as he’s done for me in basketball, a part of me thinks he’s hindered me in my career and what I could have become,” Green said on his podcast. “You know, when I think of who I was offensively as a player and who I became, I think a part of that is due to him. I don’t hold that against him.”
Taking an open shot when necessary has been a demon that has followed Green for years. In 2018, Durant went on the record and asked Green to “be aggressive.”
“I hate when he’s looking to pass when he should shoot,” Durant said. “It’s not selfishness. It’s just that we need that in order for us to be good. It’s really unselfishness when you go out there and be the best player that you can be, scoring the basketball sometimes.”
When Durant said this, Green was shooting a dismal 22.4 percent from deep and attempting only 2.3 shots per game. But it is safe to say that Green has improved his shooting over the years. He posted a career-high 39.5 percent clip from deep in 2023-24, but later didn’t just credit his trainer, Travis Walton.
Green revealed a season later that meeting with a sports psychiatrist helped him do a lot of “mental work.” He described a specific in-game moment when he went 0-for-3 and then played with a “huge mental hurdle,” thinking he couldn’t miss another shot at any cost, which led him to hide and not take another shot at all.
Although Green successfully grew out of that bubble, Kerr wants him to do better. The coach has kept emphasizing how important Green has been to Golden State’s success. In the same conversation with Tom Tolbert, Kerr credited the forward with his role in every championship the Warriors have won in their current era.
“I will say forever: we don’t have a single championship without him, the guy’s that impactful on winning,” Kerr said. “This year I need the same patience from him. Because this is going to be an interesting year, a transition year of sorts, and we’re going to do some things differently, and he and Steph obviously have this great rapport.”
For now, Kerr’s message is fairly simple. He wants Green to keep doing what makes him valuable while cutting on mistakes and taking open threes. Getting that balance right could be one of the Warriors’ biggest challenges as they begin another season around Curry. It is hard to see them sustain a winning streak because of Jimmy Butler’s prolonged absence, but you just never know.