Draymond Green has apologized to Golden State Warriors following his altercation with fellow teammate Jordan Poole.
Golden State Warriors’ power forward Draymond Green has apologized to the team on Thursday morning for a dispute with Jordan Poole the day before, the general manager Bob Myers said.
Green left the training facilities and is not expected back until Saturday. The Warriors are still in the process of disciplining Green, but Myers said he does not expect him to miss any games due to punishment.
“These things happen. Nobody likes it, we don’t condone it, but it happens,” Myers said. “Draymond apologized to the team. Jordan was there in the room. … As far as any suspension, punishment, fine, we will handle that internally.”
Sources told the media that Green threw a punch at Poole at practice Wednesday.
The disagreement started when the two exchanged words during their practice, which the intensified when they started shoving each other and culminated with Green punching Poole, sources said.
Throughout his career, Green has been considered the Warriors’ heartbeat and emotional leader. On media day, Klay Thompson said being yelled at by Green at one point or another is a “bylaw now.” And usually the Warriors welcome his fire.
“He will tell you he has been over that line but he always comes back,” Myers said. “Nobody is saying they don’t want him around … but [Wednesday] was not a good moment. … I don’t think he likes putting himself in these spots. He is in one, but I think he’ll find a way to earn the respect of his teammates and Jordan back.”
Myers stated that upcoming contract negotiations for both Green and Poole was not the cause of the disagreement, and he hadn’t observed any change in behaviour from either player leading up to the incident.
Both Warriors coach Steve Kerr and point guard Stephen Curry both had their say on the issue.
“There was a report that Jordan had an attitude in camp, and that could not be further from the truth,” Kerr said. “He’s been fantastic.”
Curry added: “[Poole] has been great, and there was nothing that warranted the situation yesterday. I want to make that clear.”
The general manager believes the Wednesday incident will be settled in no time as he claims things like this has happened before.
“It’s unfortunate, I’m not going to deny it,” Myers said. “It’ll take some time to move through, but we’ll move through it and move forward. And I’m confident that we will. … This isn’t our first thing that’s happened, first sense of adversity. We’ve been through some of this before. Don’t like going through it but it’s part of the NBA and it’s part of sports.”
