Looks like the Golden State Warriors have some explaining to do. After it was reported that Draymond Green and Jordan Poole got into a dust-up at practice and general manager Bob Myers tried to downplay it as “these things happen,” video of the incident leaked and it’s much worse than the Warriors let on. Green is seen leaving his feet and throwing punches that knock Poole to the ground. Green and Poole both want contract extensions, and this video makes it clear the Warriors have only one choice.
TMZ obtained the video of the altercation between Draymond Green and Jordan Poole at practice https://t.co/55rMnBqAVG pic.twitter.com/k02BGsBo8G
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) October 7, 2022
Let’s get some things out of the way. If you think this is the first time Green has swung on a teammate in practice or has had any other kind of altercations with teammates or coaches, I’ve got a bridge to sell you.
Remember the 2016 season when at halftime of a game against Oklahoma City, Green had to be restrained from going after head coach Steve Kerr in the locker room at halftime?
Green also kicked LeBron James in the 2016 NBA Finals and we remember the blowup with then teammate Kevin Durant in Los Angeles in 2018.
This is who Green is. He’s an emotional and fiery player who plays on the edge and oftentimes goes way overboard. The Warriors allow him to overstep because he is so valuable to their team. Yes, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson score. But Green’s defense and ball movement on offense are key to their success.
Hall of Famer Charles Barkley loves to make fun of Green’s “triple singles,” but if Barkley had played with a player like Green, he might’ve won a championship.
Since 2015, when fully healthy Green has been among the league leaders in EPM, and that’s with his “limited” offensive game.
The problem now is Green is 32 and in line for a max contract extension. Warriors governor Joe Lacob, general manager Bob Myers and head coach Steve Kerr have to be asking themselves if the juice is worth the squeeze?
How many years of elite play does Green have left? Do the Warriors, who already have the highest luxury tax bill in the league, want to sign Green to a four-year, $138 million extension and deal with all of this extra stuff? He has this year and next year left on his current deal.
Like former Los Angeles Clippers governor Donald Sterling, the NBA and everyone associated knew who he was. The reason he was able to last so long is because the public never “knew.” Though all you had to do was read local L.A. papers and you’d know he was a despicable human being. But once that audio tape was released of his saying “you don’t have to have yourself with, walking with black people” all bets were off. They couldn’t hide any longer and something had to be done.
The Warriors have known who Green is all along. Those of us in and around the NBA know. But maybe the public didn’t really “know.” Now that you’ve seen the video it’s out there and the Warriors have everything they need to move on from Green.
It’s likely they would have at some point anyway, but it might have been a lot more difficult.
The Warriors were willing to try and cover and bury the situation, showing Green how much they value him. But now that the video is out there, they can use that and the brief benching of Green in last year’s Finals for poor play as evidence that, no, the juice is no longer worth the squeeze.
What Green did to Poole is a workplace assault, no matter how you slice it. We don’t call it that because it happens in the hyper-masculine world of professional sports, where “boys will be boys” and “stuff like this happens all the time.” But the video is out and the Warriors aren’t going to be able to spin this the way they want.
Poole is well within his right to exact his pound of flesh from the organization, given what transpired.
Green has nobody to blame but himself for however this plays out. He has likely caused himself some serious money, and what team would want to bring him on, given what they now know?
Defending an NBA title is hard, and the Warriors have made their title defense even harder.
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