Draymond speaks at Harvard yesterday

“I understand the difference in owning equity, owning a trade market, for instance. There was one particular owner (Cuban) who said that I didn't understand equity. Nah, I understand equity. I understand owning a trade market, owning a business.
“But when we speak of, say for instance, a team. I'll use my owner as an example. Once again, 'my owner', think about it. But the owner of our team, I'll use that as an example. We have a very close relationship. If Peter Guber and Joe Lacob walk in, I'm going to say, 'Hey, Leah, here's my owner Joe Lacob. Here's my owner Peter Guber.'”
Draymond then pointed at Bob Myers, the Warriors general manager, who was seated in the front row.
“Bob's gonna say, 'Hey, here's my owner Joe Lacob,'” Green said. “But think about that: 'Here's my owner.' Do they really own you the person? So when you think about a basketball team, a football team, when you think of the Golden State Warriors, you don't think about the bridge on the front of the jersey.
“No, you probably think Steph Curry. You probably think Kevin Durant. You probably think Klay Thompson. Those are the things you think. So if I walk in and say, 'Hey, I'm the owner of the Golden State Warriors,' and someone thinks Steph Curry, it's a backwards thing. Do you own Steph?
“So when we look at business, I've seeked out a lot of different CEOs. I want to understand their thinking, want to one day possibly be a chairman of some business. But when you look at these businesses, no one ever says, 'Oh, Steve Jobs is the owner of Apple.' No, he's the CEO. We can go down the list.
“But yet, when we get to sports, it's, 'Oh, there's the owner,' when technically this field is made up of all people. Like, it's driven by people, driven by athletes, general managers and coaches. That's what makes up the core of the business and makes the business thrive. Then why is the word owner used?
“I was thinking to myself about that awhile before that came out and I figured maybe I should share those thoughts. You see it over and over and over again. Because the thing about it is this: I didn't say it in disrespect to anyone. Those were my thoughts.
“But I'll say Mark Cuban because he's the one that came out and said what he said. I wasn't going to get into a back-and-forth with Mark Cuban because that wasn't my whole point. My point was to just start a conversation that may need to be had.
“When you look at Mark Cuban, for instance, with the whole equity thing. We all can own equity and that's fine. But Mark Cuban will never know or understand how it feels for me, a young black African-American, to turn on the TV and see what happened in Charlottesville. He'll never have that feeling.
“So when I say, hey, maybe we shouldn't use that word. To be honest, I really don't expect him to understand where I'm coming from. Because he will never feel what I feel when I turn on the TV and see however many people taken down by the KKK or whatever group it was.
“He'll never know that feeling that I have about that. You can try to understand it, but he's never going to understand it quite to the degree that I do. For instance, if there's someone who is Jewish and they may feel a certain way about Germans.
“I'll never know that feeling because it's not me. I can sympathize and say I feel bad for them. But I'll never know deeply how that really feels. So I think that's the most important thing, understanding it's not to take a shot at the owner of these entities. It's trying to help spark change to help others who may be similar to me because he may feel the same way I feel because he's African-American.
“As much as Bob (points to Myers again) may sympathize with me — and Bob will say it himself: 'I can't really say how you feel with that.' It's kind of hard to speak out and say, 'That's wrong, you can't feel that way and I can own equity and do this and you're dead wrong for saying that.'
“You can't say I'm dead wrong because you really don't know how it feels to turn on that TV and see a young black man shot by a police officer when he was unarmed. You'll never get that feeling. So it's hard to say I'm wrong when you don't have that.”

— Draymond was asked if he'd ever thought about getting into politics. He said no, and told the assembled students they were the future in that realm and that he didn't know enough about politics.

“You know more than Trump,” one student yelled.

WhiteBoyHatcher wrote:

— Draymond was asked if he'd ever thought about getting into politics. He said no, and told the assembled students they were the future in that realm and that he didn't know enough about politics.

“You know more than Trump,” one student yelled.

Robert J Sakimano wrote:we need more folks like him talking truth to power.