All these coaches speaking on Giannis Antetokounmpo is hitting a little close to home in the Bay. Because of it, Draymond Green revisited one of the most controversial statements in modern NBA media history, but with the benefit of hindsight. Over a decade ago, Mark Jackson was replaced by Steve Kerr as Golden State Warriors head coach, and they’d go on to win a championship. And then Mark Jackson would make a comment that sounded petty and bitter. But now, Green is offering a full defense of his former head coach.

This week on his podcast, Green addressed Doc Rivers’ recent comments on Giannis’ IQ, which turned into a callback to Jackson’s infamous 2015 claim that Stephen Curry was “hurting the game” of basketball.

“If you remember, Mark Jackson made that comment, I think, the same year that… or two later, that he was let go from the Golden State Warriors. And when he said it, I’ll be honest, I remember everybody, including us, like, ‘damn, why would he say that? Like, that’s just crazy that Coach Jackson would say that,’” Green recalled.

Jackson suffered as much backlash then as Rivers does now. However, Green claims that Coach Jackson was misunderstood and ultimately proven accurate regarding Curry’s seismic impact on hoops. Green stressed that Jackson’s actual praise of Curry’s generational gift got distorted in the broader context.

Green clarified that Jackson’s critique was directed not at Curry’s execution, but at the wave of copycats across high school and AAU circuits trying to imitate shots they lacked the mechanics or strength to hit.

“And so, however, everybody was like, man, he’s s——ing on Mark Jackson. He’s s——ing on Steph Curry. And he wasn’t. He was actually telling the truth because the influence of power that Steph Curry has on the game of basketball—Steph Curry changed the way the game is played,” Green continued. “The way he shoots the basketball changed the way people guard. Changed the way the game is played. It changed offenses.”

He again defended Jackson, saying, “He wasn’t saying he ruined the game in a negative way. He was saying he ruined the game, like, now you got people who can’t shoot threes casting a bunch of threes, this, that, because they see him do it and he makes it look so effortless that it’s ruining it for everybody else because they’re trying to do it and they don’t shoot like that. And that’s what Mark Jackson was getting at.”

The Warriors let go of Jackson in 2014, and the following year, Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and the Warriors won their first title under Steve Kerr. They beat the LeBron-led Cavaliers, and Curry earned his first MVP nod. Curry’s 2015 MVP and the Warriors’ title elevated the debate over the league’s best player, with Draymond Green strongly backing Curry as the team’s leader.

LeBron James would relinquish the ‘best player’ mantle to Curry, and Draymond Green would back him, saying, “He should believe that, and he is. I think the team agreed with that, and we’re rolling with him.”

Mark Jackson couldn’t have chosen a worse time than the Christmas Day game in 2015 to make disagreeable comments.

Serving as an analyst during the broadcast of the marquee Finals rematch between the Warriors and Cleveland Cavaliers, Jackson ignited an instant debate when he remarked mid-game, “To a degree, he’s hurting the game. And what I mean by that is that I go into these high school gyms, I watch these kids, and the first thing they do is they run to the 3-point line. You are not Steph Curry. Work on the other aspects of the game.”

At the time, the reaction from the Warriors locker room was swift and hostile. Curry expressed confusion to the remarks, saying back then, “I have to talk to him. I don’t know what he means by that. If you can shoot, shoot. If you can’t, stop.”

Meanwhile, former Warriors center Andrew Bogut sharply commented, “Anything he says, you can take that with a grain of salt.”

Even Green felt Curry was a good standard to aspire to. “It’s good for kids to think they can be Steph because it gives them realistic hope,” he said in 2015.

However, years after the initial friction, players see Mark Jackson’s comments for what they are. Kevin Durant previously validated Jackson’s core argument in 2019. In 2026, Green admitted that when Jackson first uttered that statement, the team was defensive.

However, Green explained that context was stripped from the quote, which was about how Curry’s effortless brilliance inspired millions of amateur players to abandon fundamentals.

While Curry’s viral range convinced an entire generation of junior players that jack-up perimeter shots were easy, Green’s retrospective endorsement highlights how perception around Jackson’s comments shifted from personal bitterness to an accurate critique of the dramatic shift in basketball over the last decade.

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