Got your attention? Didn’t know the fiery Basketball heart and soul of the Warriors was a Jazz fan? Well, not exactly, but what he said about basketball applies EXACTLY to Jazz. I am going to print his quote word for word, with the exception of substituting Jazz for Basketball, Gig for Game, etc..and italicizing the words and phrases where I swapped jazz in for hoops. We who play and try to teach this music have conversations similar to this all the time, and bemoan that we have these absurdly highly prepared “hot house flowers” who do not get to (or do not choose to) learn on the bandstand. It is yet another way that great jazz and great basketball are such perfect analogs. Preach, Draymond:

“There’s no better teacher than playing Jazz,” Draymond Green said. “If you teach a guy to do a practice routine all the time and he never plays and then you throw him on the gig, he’s going to sound like somebody who practices all the time and never plays gigs. So the reality is him being on the bandstand, there’s no better teacher than that. You can’t simulate that pressure. You can go play in a pro-style jam session in the summer at summer jazz camps, with all pro players, and it still does not simulate the real-life experience of a gig with real players. So the only way to feel that is to get out on the bandstand.”*

*The original:

“There’s no better teacher than playing basketball,” Draymond Green said. “If you take a guy to do a basketball workout all the time and he never plays and then you throw him in the game, he’s going to look like somebody who works out all the time and never plays basketball. So the reality is him being on the floor, there’s no better teacher than that. You can’t simulate that speed. You can go play in an NBA-style pickup game in the summer, with all NBA players, and it still does not simulate the speed of the game. So the only way to feel that is to get out on the floor.”