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Both Draymond Green and AT&T know how much the Golden State Warriors defensive standout’s on-court decisions affected his team this season—and they’re not afraid to say it.
Since coming to the Warriors from Michigan State in 2012, Green and longtime teammates Steph Curry and Klay Thompson have won four titles together. Green also has become a generation’s defensive template, being named to the NBA’s All-Defensive Team eight times in his career.
Unfortunately, like great defensive players before him—Charles Barkley, Dennis Rodman and Rasheed Wallace—Green’s talent for goading opposing players into poor choices has led to a few of his own.
The NBA star has racked up nearly 150 technical fouls during his career and was suspended for one game last year after notching 16 in a season. This season, he was suspended for five games for putting the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Rudy Gobert in a headlock and another 12 games for punching the Phoenix Suns’ Jusuf Nurkic.
The Warriors finished 46-36 and squeaked into the last spot of the NBA’s four-team play-in round in the Western Conference, though they eventually lost that game.
Green knows the Warriors are better with him on the court—with the team only finishing around .500 without him—and he’s not afraid to own up to his mistakes on a national scale.
During college basketball’s March Madness tournament, Green and AT&T (along with the brand’s creative partners at BBDO LA) dropped some sports marketing that poked fun at his questionable on-court choices, pointing out that they present an opportunity for growth.
ADWEEK spoke with Green about the spot, his growing self-awareness, and how both his brand and media partnerships—including his deal with Turner’s Inside the NBA—have influenced his more recent decisions.
ADWEEK: How important is it to find the right partners so you don’t look back and say, “I spent hours of my life talking to people about corn chips?”
Green: That was something that I would say maybe in 2019 or 2020.
I had a bunch of different brands, and they were kind of all over the place. At that point, I stopped. I got rid of all my brand deals except for Nike, which then turned into Converse.
It was stripping the house down to the studs, and I was like, “OK, now from this point on, I’m only going to partner with brands that A: Want to tell an interesting story, as AT&T has done in this case. And B: Are great brands, brands that we know, brands that we love, brands that I would want my name along with, like an AT&T.