Draymond Green’s back problem becomes clearer during Warriors’ critical run

SAN FRANCISCO — The Golden State Warriors enter Wednesday’s action with their most tenuous grip on the play-in tournament in weeks. At 35-32, they’re suddenly just two-and-a-half games up on the surging Houston Rockets for 10th in the Western Conference—closer to Ime Uduka’s team in the standings than the eighth-place Phoenix Suns.

Golden State’s dreams of avoiding the play-in altogether have all but vanished entirely. With three wins and threes losses in their last six games, the Dubs have been relegated to simply worrying about playing past the regular season at all.

Wednesday’s matchup with the struggling, injury-ravaged Memphis Grizzlies could go a long way toward easing those concerns. Memphis has lost five of its last six games, including two in a row since Desmond Bane returned to the lineup after joining Ja Morant on the sidelines in mid-January with a sprained left ankle.

Draymond Green, meanwhile, was still listed as questionable due to lower back soreness less than 30 minutes before tipoff. Steve Kerr told reporters during pregame media availability he was likely to play, but also copped to physical realities the 34-year-old will have to manage not only during the stretch run of 2023-24, but for the remainder of his career.

“He’s a little banged up. I mean, he’s been playing a lot since he came back, whenever that was—six weeks ago. He’s played every game I think, or he just missed the one in Dallas,” Kerr said of Green. “But a lot of minutes, a lot of wear-and-tear over his career. He’s just at a place in his career where he’ll require a little maintenance and there’s gonna be more bumps and bruises. But he takes good care of himself, and he was in here this morning with [team trainer Rick Celebrini] and told me that everything went well and he feels good, so he’s ready to go tonight.”

Warriors at risk of missing play-in tournament if Draymond Green is forced to sit

Golden State’s once-disastrous regular season began turning around when Green came back from his indefinite suspension in mid-January. The Warriors are 16-9 since Kerr committed to Green as his team’s full-time starting center, tied for the fourth-best record in basketball over that timeframe.

Defense, unsurprisingly, is where he’s made his singular presence felt most, leading the Dubs to a top-10 mark on that side of the ball over the last 25 games. They were 29th on defense while Green served his suspension, ranking only above the lowly Detroit Pistons on that side of the ball. Just as telling of Green’s impact? Golden State is just 10-12 overall this season without Green, compared to 25-20 when he’s available.

The back issue the four-time champion is currently dealing with is related to the one that sidelined him for a significant chunk of 2021-22 and left him unable to jump while rehabbing over the subsequent summer. Green is feeling well enough to play against the Grizzlies, but there’s no guarantee that will remain the case over the Warriors’ three-week sprint toward the postseason.

After missing last week’s loss to the Dallas Mavericks with lower back soreness, Green addressed the state of his injury.

“My back has been bothering me for like four or five games, and I’ve kinda been going through it. Like, just playing through it and playing through it,” he said on his eponymous podcast. “…And so the hope is that in not having a game since Monday for myself, and not playing in the Dallas game, that as opposed to getting it back to a place where it’s like, ‘Alright, I can get out there now,’ that those extra couple days will allow it to go away.”

Unfortunately for Green, he won’t get ‘those extra couple days’ to rest his back while the Dubs try fend off the rising Rockets and pass the Los Angeles Lakers for ninth. Golden State will play each of its final 14 games of the regular season with just one day off or less, with three sets of back-to-backs remaining.

Depth has been a blessing and a curse for the Warriors throughout 2023-24, propping them up amid injuries and absences while also making it more difficult for them to develop an ingrained identity until past the halfway point of the 82-game grind. The hope is that Green’s back doesn’t lock back up on him, forcing him to miss more time when Golden State needs him most.

But his status is clearly subject to change on a game-by-game basis, putting the Warriors’ play-in status at even greater risk than the standings suggest.

“We do a have a lot of depth. I think that’s the strong suit of this team,” Kerr said when asked how he’ll manage the lack of rest days over the season’s remainder. “We have bodies, a lot of good players, guys who we can count on. So we’ll lean into that.”

Just keep your fingers crossed Golden State isn’t forced to lean even further into its depth as a result of Green’s injury getting worse once again.