After the Golden State Warriors were eliminated by the Los Angeles Lakers in Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals, doubts have risen about the future of the championship-winning team.
The Warriors were defending NBA champions but ended up as the 6th seed in the West this season, and with the core of Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson all over the age of 30, concerns about the end of an era are being raised.
After the game, four-time NBA champion Green spoke to reporters about the team’s performance and future prospects. Green was asked about coach Steve Kerr’s comments regarding the Warriors’ future and their potential for another championship run.
“I think this group definitely maxed out what we could do,” Green said. “It wasn’t a championship team. We didn’t win it. So it sucks, but that’s our reality. That doesn’t mean our changes, that doesn’t mean our core can’t do it again.
“I mean, they said we couldn’t do it again last year. We did it. They said we’d miss the playoffs this year. We did it. But guess what? We don’t do moral victories. So we lost. And this was not a championship group as it stands. But we have champions and we’re made up of champions.”
Green went on to say that the team is not satisfied with moral victories and that the focus will be on retooling and figuring out how to win another championship. He acknowledged that this particular group had reached its limit, but that did not mean the end of the road for the Warriors.
“When you are a champion, when you have that mindset, you just go back to the drawing board, retool, re-figure it out and go do it again,” Green said. “And that’s what’ll be our focus. But it wasn’t a championship group as you can see we’re sitting here and the season’s over. So we’ll figure it out. This group was maxed. We got what we could get out of it. But this thing isn’t maxed. So we’ll get more out of that.”
