The Draymond Green effect?
After the Warriors veteran emphasized the importance of rookie energy on the road following Friday night’s win over the Oklahoma City Thunder, Golden State on Saturday recalled forward Trayce Jackson-Davis from its G League affiliate in Santa Cruz just one day after he was reassigned there.
“I also think our young fellas not being here, Trayce and [Brandin Podziemski] and Lester [Quinones], the energy that they bring to this team — we missed that,” Green told reporters in Oklahoma City. “Next time we have an In-Season Tournament game, we need those guys here, because they bring a lot of juice for us.
“You always talk about young guys bringing energy. That’s their job. But we don’t have to tell those guys to bring energy. They do every single day. I wasn’t overly shocked our energy wasn’t there because they are the guys that lift our energy level and they weren’t here.”
After Jackson-Davis and fellow rookie Brandin Podziemski were reassigned to Santa Cruz on Friday, Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters before the game that both youngsters would benefit from increased drill work and scrimmage time in G League training camp. The impact of Green’s words aside, Friday night’s win showed the Warriors could use Jackson-Davis, however.
Even though neither has become a mainstay in Kerr’s rotation yet, Jackson-Davis and Podziemski both have shown bright flashes to start the season — and clearly provided an intangible spark on the bench. The Warriors will get some of that back, along with size off the bench, with Jackson-Davis back in the fray.
The Warriors pulled out a last-second win over the much-younger Thunder, and they’ll need some of that youthful energy as they face two more teams that are younger than them in the Cleveland Cavaliers and Detroit Pistons. The Warriors’ average age for the 2023-24 NBA season is 28.03, or third-oldest in the league, while the Cavs and Pistons boast an average age of 26.51 and 24.87 years, respectively.
Factor that gap in with it being a back-to-back on Sunday and Monday, and bench depth will become all the more important as the Warriors’ 30-and-up club looks to keep the team’s win streak alive.
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