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The Golden State Warriors’ defense of their NBA championship got off to a difficult start before the season even started when Draymond Green punched teammate Jordan Poole in the face during a practice.
It upset the Warriors’ notoriously strong chemistry and Green was forced to issue a public apology.
Those issues lingered on into the season and Golden State limped to 44-38 record and the six seed in the Western Conference.
But now that’s all in the past.
The Warriors won back-to-back home games to even their first-round series with the upstart Sacramento Kings. They now hold the momentum in the series. But that’s not all. Golden State also benefits from the likelihood that Kings star De’Aaron Fox will miss Game 5 with a fractured finger.
Things are looking up for the defending champs. And there’s no clearer sign of that than Green’s answer asked when asked about a second incident involving he and Poole in January.
Shams Charania of The Athletic reports the incident involved Green chewing out his young teammate for his attitude and decision-making.
“You heard,” Green asked Charania about the incident. “I do remember that moment. So number one: We all know the situation. We all know what happened. And I felt like I had to earn my voice. A voice isn’t given. For me, I wanted to do things to earn that back, and not just say, ‘Oh, man, I’m Draymond and everybody going to listen.’ Maybe that works, maybe it doesn’t. But if it doesn’t, then you lose all respect, you lose everyone’s ear. For me, the first three, three and a half months of the season isn’t worth that. It isn’t worth the other side of it. I needed to earn respect and I needed to earn a voice. And not just because you’re Draymond, or Dray’, you’ve done this, you’ve done that in this organization and everyone’s just supposed to listen.’ S— don’t just work like that.
“…“That moment happened leading into the All-Star break … I felt like it was important to have that moment. But I also felt it had to be at the right time. We hadn’t put many wins together all year in a row, and so you try to feel out the right time. We were on a home stand, trying to put wins together. I feel that was the time that you try to reinsert yourself.”
Green also said that if his comment wasn’t accepted, he would’ve taken a step back. But since it was, it was full-steam ahead.
The Golden State Warriors appear to be on the same page, which is a scary sight for the rest of the NBA.