Dray and CP go on for 11 mins straight about how much they love being each other’s teammates

Transcript below.

**CP:** Because I know guys that are competitors, we got a lot alike.

We are alike in a lot of ways and that’s why I mean I’m sure we’ll talk about it at some point but when the trade happen for me to come to the Warriors and knowing our history. I knew that would be a conversation ,but I knew basketball wise he on the same type of energy I’m on, you know what I mean?

And so like you said, I’m a believer in that, you know, some people will say my competitiveness is the best thing about me and the worst thing about me but at the end of the day, it’s who I am, right? You just at times you have to figure out ways to channel it and that’s why it’s been dope with you because we talk about it and it’s one of those things where you need somebody who you respect on that competitive level to talk to you and challenge you with it, you know?

I’ve had a number of great teammates over my career who at times when I get a little crazy they be like “hey yo chill, chill.”

**Dray:** So I think that’s been a very interesting thing for me especially navigating this season, I was telling, I’ve told several people this actually, is one of the things that you’ve helped me with a ton is how I speak. I’ll come in the huddle and I’m like “Yo what the fuck?? Like why are we switching this? This don’t make sense, we should have been stop switching this, I’ve been said let’s stop.” And you’re like “yo yo yo hold on like what are you saying? What do you see?” And I’m like “Alright well they keep hitting us with the same play, we keep switching it, and I don’t understand why we’re switching it. It’s putting us at a disadvantage here then they’re getting to this thing.” And you’re like “alright so what do you think we should do?” And I say “yeah I think we should guard it like this” and you go “alright y’all hear that? that’s what we’re doing.”

And I remember the first few times you did it, when you finished I sat there and I felt stupid because I’m like I just came in here yelling screaming like blurting out what I think should happen and he just totally calmed me down and got the point across.

**CP:** You know what Dray, and it’s so crazy man it’s because I’ve almost needed another me too, right? So gang of my teammates will probably hear this and be like what person’s doing what? Because I’ve usually always been the guy who’s yelling, you know what I’m saying? And still now I’ll do that but I think over the years what I’ve tried to do is you know everybody always remembers it’s just like if you tell somebody how good they are a thousand times if you tell them they bad one time they don’t remember that, right? So people may have whatever perception of me or whatnot but for my whole career I’m the guy who I text my teammates at night after a game good job this that and the third you know what I mean like always encouraging them, but people always going to remember how you were sort of hard on them but that is what it is.

Like David West back when I played in New Orleans, I’ll never forget, he came to me one of my practices and he was like “hey, Peasy you gotta chill, you got to watch how you talking, Peasy.” That’s what he said to me and I remember and I was like “Yeah, David, I just want to win, you know? Listen to what I’m saying, not how I’m saying it.” And I still have times where I’m on 10, you know? And sometimes it’s necessary, but that’s why I can appreciate somebody like you because I hear what you’re saying, you know, I mean I ain’t tripping at how you’re saying it. But being in the huddle with you it’s like I need somebody else to care like this, you know, which they do, but it’s a passion and I think that’s why, like I said, I love being your teammate.

**Dray:** I’ve told several people this and I would have never in a million years imagined it happening. I have not sat down and done the exercise. So I will one day do that. But if I put up a list of teammates and like I went down this list and it’s been 12 years now for me and I went through this list of teammates, and I start putting my list in order of my top teammates, what I’m certain of is that you’re top five on my list of top teammates. And it’s been such an incredible, oddly enough, I’ve had the the tumultuous year that I’ve had as far as things have been going just this season and righting the ship. But the time that I have been with the team, you know, our practices and time spent together and games and all of those things. I’m like, yo, he represents everything that I could want in a teammate.

Shit going wrong? First person to check on you. Stuff went right? First person to congratulate you. Yo, what you doing for dinner? What you doing with this thing? What you doing with that thing? Yo, what do you see on the floor? I’m seeing this. You seeing that thing. Across the board and I’m like, wow. That’s what I try to be for teammates. You know, like I try to be all of those things for teammates. A guy got an MRI? Yo, how was your MRI? Everything good with you the moment you find out? Like, just all of those things and like checking all of those boxes. And I don’t even know where I’m going with this, but I just want you to know that.

**CP:** You know what it is, right? It’s crazy. And like as long as we done compete against each other, right? Like I told you, like when this trade happened, you was a free agent or what not. And I’ll never forget when they called me and said it was a possibility. And people wouldn’t even know this except for my family but I told them, I said, **”Well, I don’t want to come if Draymond isn’t back.”** And that’s why I mean, you always talk about it like the social media world and all that. They don’t ever really know what’s really happening. And so **I didn’t want to come to the Warriors without you being here. So as much as we done fought and got into it and all that, I saw the way that you protected Steph, Klay all them guys over this time, man. And it was like, damn, if we can figure it out, you know, we can play and be on the same team. It’s gonna be hell for the other teams, you know, and so that that’s what I’ve appreciated, man.**

**And regardless of how the season been so far, that’s where the ups, the downs, the wins and losses, you know they come. But that’s why we keep saying in our locker room, we gonna be fine. We gonna be fine.**

**Dray:** And I think for me, you know, you go through these things and you’re trying to sort through the things trying to figure it all out. And I think for me, the thing that I can always turn back to is like, I got some guys that I want to make this right for, you know, like, regardless of what you may go through mentally, you know, for me, mentally going through like, I’m probably done. Like, I don’t even know if I can really handle all of these things no more. You know, like, it’s just really what I want to be doing anymore. And going through and processing all those emotions and feeling those feelings, and going through all the things I’ve went through in my career, the ups, the downs. I feel like this is one of the first times I really just took a step back and allow myself to feel it.

**CP:** Yeah. And it’s necessary. And it’s been dope to be on that journey with you and the guys and all this stuff, man. But it’s crazy for me to see because, you know, all the guys, the guys that are retired, the guys who came before us, it’s, it’s a lot to bear. You know, it’s a lot, it’s a lot of pressure. It’s a lot thrown at us, not just to be the best athlete, but life. You know what I mean? And so to, to try to hold it all together for everybody is what we all try to do. And that’s why it’s been dope to be able to lean on each other. You know what I’m saying? You, you’re going through what you’re going through, but you still trying to be there for other guys. You know what I mean? And so when you get on the other side of it, man, like we always talk about, you know, we smile, we laugh and everything gonna be cool.

**Dray:** No doubt. And I think for me, it’s looking at you. It’s looking at Steph. It’s looking at, you know, young guys, Klay, and it’s like, no, but I want to, I want to do it right. Get right and do it right for them.

Like, I think that’s probably always been my mindset, you know, like I was always the kid that, you know, my mom would curse me out because I give to everybody, like I’ll give somebody my last dollar, right? And she’d be like “Why don’t you give him your last dollar?!” And I’m like, “Ma, he *needed* the dollar, I didn’t need the dollar.” She’s like, “no, but you don’t give him your last dollar.” I’m like, “mom, I’ll go find another dollar. He needed that dollar.”

**CP:** Now that I’ve been your teammate, and I can see it and play along alongside you and I see your life, you do so much for everybody. And that’s what was crazy is even me trying to find my way here with this team, you done got on me a few times. You got on me at the right times where you were like, “C, don’t lose yourself. Don’t lose yourself.”

by taygads