The Golden State Warriors secured a much-needed win Tuesday night against the surging young Orlando Magic. It snapped a three-game skid and moved Golden State to 15-17 on the season.
Listen to the full interview above, or start at the 12:25 mark for the segment on Green
It also marked the 10th game with Draymond Green not on the floor since he was indefinitely suspended following a blow he delivered to Jusuf Nurkic.
Anthony Slater addressed the situation Wednesday morning after Steve Kerr declined to provide much insight Tuesday night.
"There's not much of an answer," Slater said.
There's not much of an answer or even a desire to give anybody an answer right now," Slater said. "And part of what I think is interesting is, if you track the timeline of this thing -- so the foul happens in Phoenix, they go to L.A., he gets indefinitely suspended. Mike Dunleavy talks in the morning of that Clippers game and admits the NBA is permitting him to be in the building, he's allowed to practice with us.
There was an expectation that he would take that weekend kind of away from the team. But there was an idea -- they were at least hinting to us that he'll probably be around. Maybe not at every practice, maybe not around all the time on every road trip, but stay in shape, be around the team. That just hasn't been the case.
Like Steve Kerr said yesterday, he hasn't been in the facility with the team. I'm getting no intel or word exactly the reasoning behind it. Steve Kerr said it last night like, we're giving him his space, he's giving us ours is the way he termed it. Which, take that how you want. They're being very vague about it.
When he said he's given us our space it kind of seems like it's a little bit Draymond Green's choice."
It's an odd situation in which the indefinite timeline means that the Warriors, Green and the NBA have substantial flexibility to handle the situation and little incentive to offer concrete updates -- especially if there aren't any to provide.
Slater said that lack of timeline and clarity reminded him a bit of Andrew Wiggins' situation last season. While it's not nearly as cloudy, there is suddenly a sense that no one knows how long this situation will last.
"Then there's the whole therapy, mental health, counseling part of this that they're purposely being vague about," Slater said. "It reminds me a little bit of the Wiggins situation last year. I remember like every four games I had to try to press Steve Kerr on it and he wouldn't give an answer that was satisfying the the fanbase and they would continue to go like, 'Where's Wiggins?'
It's like, I'll keep asking, but -- you would talk to people around the team last year when Wiggins was gone, they would be coming up asking me like, 'Do you know what's going on?'
I'm not saying it's there. I'm not saying it's at that level. We do kind of know what's going on. There's less hidden here, but it's still, now that we're 10 games into it and no end seems to be in sight, it's become a bigger [thing]."
Despite the heightened awareness and discomfort around the protracted absence -- and Green's actions leading to the absence -- Slater doesn't believe Green would get dealt at the trade deadline.
Slater said Green still has plenty to offer on the court, and even if the Warriors wanted to deal him, and another team felt he was worth the four-year $100 million extension that began this season, he'd still come with the baggage of his recent suspensions. That would make any trade difficult, even if the Warriors did show interest in trading him.