Coaching a player like Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green is likely a roller coaster ride. A gift and a curse. He’s ultra-competitive, highly intelligent, and one of the game’s best two-way playmakers. Yet, he’s also incredibly volatile, racking up 181 career technical fouls as of May 3, per Yahoo Sports’ Ali Thanawalla. He’s also been the aggressor in on-court altercations involving Sacramento Kings center Domantas Sabonis and Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert.
So, when Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was asked by the Le Batard Show‘s Dan Le Batard what the “angriest” that’s he ever been with Green, he had quite a few moments to choose from.
Warriors’ Steve Kerr Divulges Most Maddening Draymond Green Moment
“Well, there’s a lot of examples,” Kerr begins. “I think for sure the Jordan Poole incident. Draymond and I are alike in many ways. People probably wouldn’t see that from the outside. We’re both kind of maniacal competitors and we’ve lost our minds with each other during games… but he crossed the line with Jordan.”
Steve Kerr on the angriest he’s ever been with Draymond:
“The Jordan Poole incident… He crossed the line with Jordan. He knew it immediately, and it made that season incredibly difficult for everybody.”
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“He knows it. He knew it immediately and it made that season incredibly difficult for everybody.”
How The Punch Affected The Warriors
As Kerr alludes to, Green’s poorly thought out decision to throw a hard punch at Jordan Poole made for an awkward situation. However, that’s largely because the video of the incident was leaked. The altercation went viral, making its rounds on social media and television. Kerr saw it. Green saw it. Poole, in all likelihood, saw it. Instead of being able to quietly move on from their quarrel, the ugly spectacle led to palpable tension throughout the season. At times, it seemed like Poole didn’t even want to look Green’s way.
Now, nobody expects every player on every team to like or be friends with each other. However, part of being professional is being cordial with those individuals. Even if a situation was to escalate, as it did with Green and Poole, the hope would be for the two parties to come together and put their differences aside for the betterment of the team. To Green and Poole’s credit, they did attempt to do just that.
Nonetheless, the negative impact Green’s punch had on their chemistry didn’t help the Warriors be in-sync. Poole being the butt of jokes around the clock might have had an effect on his play. To that point, after he impressed in the 2022 NBA Playoffs, he took a step back in 2022-23. Though he averaged career-highs of 20.4 points and 4.5 assists per game, he only made 33.6 percent of his 3s and had a career-high 3.1 turnovers per game.
He was traded to the Washington Wizards less than two months after the Warriors’ 2023 playoff run ended. A player who was getting called a Splash Brother just a year prior, Poole’s career had been flipped on his head. There’s no way to explain that without going back to Green’s actions.
It Didn’t Hurt Them For Just One Season
Unfortunately for Golden State, the problems didn’t end after Poole left. A complication of Poole leaving is that the young guard was expected to be Stephen Curry‘s future backcourt mate. Instead of having Klay Thompson‘s replacement on hand, the Warriors were forced to rely on the aging and injury-prone Chris Paul, who they acquired when trading Poole. The problem with that is that Paul’s lack of positional versatility, athletic decline, and ball-dominance made him a mediocre fit beside Curry. To make matters worse, former No. 1 pick Andrew Wiggins had taken a step back after undergoing a metamorphosis in the Bay.
Fast forward to today and Golden State still doesn’t know who they’ll start alongside Curry and Green. They’ve now missed the playoffs in three of the last five years. There’s still hope that they can win another ring before Curry retires. Yet, the franchise doesn’t carry themselves with the same brash confidence that they had just a couple of years ago.
