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SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA - MAY 26: Draymond Green #23 of the Golden State Warriors reacts after a call during the second quarter against the Dallas Mavericks in Game Five of the 2022 NBA Playoffs Western Conference Finals at Chase Center on May 26, 2022 in San Francisco, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, User is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. (Photo by Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)
Draymond Green has once again lost Warriors’ trust: Amick

Sam Amick
Oct 7, 2022
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SAN FRANCISCO — It was early evening in Boston on June 16, some six hours before Golden State would win its fourth title in eight seasons by taking Game 6 of the NBA Finals against the Celtics. And Bob Myers, the Warriors’ lead executive who has been navigating dynasty dynamics for quite a few years now, had agreed to talk about a topic that was no longer taboo: The Draymond Green dilemma.

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These sorts of interviews can be tricky to conduct, as you’re asking a subject to reflect on a journey before it’s completely finished. But it came with this reality: If the Warriors had blown the series, this story that followed — “Inside the Draymond Green-Warriors partnership that perseveres and a plane ride to remember” — never would have been written.

While their latest title deed wasn’t done just yet, it seemed the roller-coaster relationship between Green and the Warriors was barreling toward a happy ending of sorts. Storybook, even.

There was no more need to rehash his tense locker room moment with coach Steve Kerr in Oklahoma City in February 2016, or the LeBron James crotch shot and subsequent Game 5 suspension in the finals months later that many believed cost them a crown. Enough with the talk about Green’s infamous blow-up at Kevin Durant in the Clippers game back on Nov. 12, 2018, or his podcast appearance with Durant two summers ago in which he openly blamed Myers and Kerr for how they handled the situation and inspired significant frustration within the organization in the process. In the end, even Green’s Game 4 benching against the Celtics was a false alarm for many people who wondered if it might derail the Warriors’ latest efforts.

The many wounds, it seemed, had been healed. And Green, same as he ever was, had reminded them all in those last few games why he was still worth all the trouble.

“Somebody smart told me a long time ago that you have to put equity in relationships because at some point, somebody’s going to upset someone else in a relationship — intentionally, unintentionally,” said Myers, who would watch Green finish with 12 rebounds, eight assists, two steals, two blocks and a plus-16 rating in the Warriors’ 103-90 closeout win. “And if you don’t have built-up equity, that can fracture the relationship.”

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And … now we’re back.

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Warriors aftermath: Where does Draymond Green stand? How is Jordan Poole?
It has been fewer than four months since those words were spoken and just a week or so since the Warriors headed to Japan to tip off their preseason. Yet there was Myers up on that Chase Center stage Thursday in San Francisco, spending nearly 20 minutes discussing Green’s decision to punch young Jordan Poole in practice the day before and sharing perspective on the organization’s response to his latest misstep. It was, as Yogi Berra once said, déjà vu all over again.

I hadn’t seen Myers since the night the Warriors won it all. But to witness the extreme contrast in his commentary from our last visit to this latest spectacle, where Myers, Steph Curry and coach Steve Kerr all made it so clear during individual news conferences that Green made a major mistake here, was nothing short of surreal.

They swear this relationship isn’t broken, but the equity has taken a major hit. Again. And after video of the sucker punch was leaked via TMZ on Friday morning, it’s easy to understand why.

To the Warriors’ credit, they made the wise choice to take this situation head-on after our Shams Charania, Anthony Slater and Marcus Thompson first broke the story on Wednesday night. If this sort of situation had happened with the Knicks, they would have just fired off a few more tweets about RJ Barrett’s extension while refusing to make key members of their organization available to the media. But I digress.

There was an understandable need to keep some information in-house here, but the Warriors’ power trio said more than enough to justify their shared disappointment. Myers said Green isn’t expected to be suspended for any games but declined to share details about the discipline that is coming his way. Curry detailed how Green had apologized to Poole and the team but declined to share more about how his mea culpa was received until Poole decided to answer that key question publicly.

Myers and Curry shared their belief that the contract situation between Poole and Green didn’t play a part here (both players are up for extensions, but Poole is widely seen as more likely to land a massive deal while Green will have to decide whether to pick up his $27.5 million player option for next season).

Kerr, who declined questions about the incident and wore his extreme dissatisfaction without saying a word, lamented the fact that this controversy would overshadow a training camp that had been otherwise positive and productive. Myers insisted that Poole, the 23-year-old who is pushing for a $130 million extension like the one Miami’s Tyler Herro inked recently, will be able to get past this ugly incident and join forces with the 32-year-old Green again. Kerr, when asked about his well-chronicled fight with Michael Jordan during a Chicago Bulls scrimmage in 1995, had no interest in comparing his plight back then with that of Poole’s.

“They had a documentary about that,” he said wryly. “Watch ‘The Last Dance.’”

But then came that moment of truth from Myers, the former agent who drafted Green 35th overall out of Michigan State in 2012 and knows all too well that impact players like him are worth, well, fighting for.

“I mean, without him, we don’t win,” Myers said. “And I want to win, our ownership wants to win, our players want to win. Our players want him on the team. And if you play, that’s the most important thing. Nobody’s saying we don’t want him around. We don’t want him on the team. They know what he does. They know what he needs. But yesterday wasn’t a good moment. That’s the bottom line. It wasn’t.

“There’s people in life that make mistakes, and don’t apologize or don’t earn your trust back. He always does that. I don’t think he likes putting himself in these spots. He’s in one. And I think he’ll find a way to earn the respect of his teammates and Jordan back. But that’s the work he has to do.”

There’s a painful premise that Myers laid bare with his remarks: Green, a future Hall of Famer and one of the greatest Warriors players who ever lived, has lost the trust and respect of his teammates and must now begin the process of earning it back. There’s just no way of denying the profound and harsh truth behind what he said.

Yet even beyond all the nuanced context that comes with Green and his complicated relationship with the Warriors, there was an uncomfortable reality of this scuffle that simply can’t be ignored. Green, who is nearly a decade older than Poole and listed as 36 pounds heavier, chose to swing on his much younger and much smaller teammate in a way that was seen internally as wildly unjustified. There is, it seems, a universal agreement on that much.


(Garrett Ellwood / NBAE via Getty Images)
Add in the fact that Poole has long since established himself as an invaluable member of this group — from the 28th pick out of Michigan in 2019 to G League stints to Warriors stardom last season — and you start to see why the stakes are so high here.

“I just said ‘You’re better than this,’ ” Myers said of his conversations with Green after the incident. “Like don’t, don’t, don’t do this. Don’t do this to yourself. Don’t put yourself in this position.’ Um, (you) still, still love the person. (You) don’t love what he did, but still love the guy. So he’s complicated.

“But he is a good person. He is a good person. He is. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen a lot of things he’s done. Yesterday wasn’t one of them. … He knows what he needs to do, and he’s got to make amends and he started with that this morning.”

What happens next, as Myers explained, will set the tone for the Warriors’ title defense.

“Yeah, look, (Poole) will speak — soon, I suppose,” Myers said. “Draymond will speak, (and) what he says is more important than what I say. That’s up to him. But knowing Jordan like I do, he’s a pretty resilient guy, and he’ll get through it. But I can’t (say). I’m not going to say how he feels, how he shouldn’t feel. I’m not going to say. Only I would know about me. But Steve and I talked about when he got hit (by Jordan). … You figure it out. You hang on to it for the time you need to, and you move on. But that’s a good question to ask (Poole). He’ll answer it. But I have confidence that it won’t erode the fabric of our team.”

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Thompson: Draymond Green incident puts Steph Curry's leadership to the ultimate test
(Photo of Draymond Green: Ezra Shaw / Getty Images)

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Sam Amick is a senior NBA writer for The Athletic. He has covered the Association for the better part of two decades while at USA Today, Sports Illustrated, AOL FanHouse and the Sacramento Bee. Follow Sam on Twitter @sam_amick
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