SAN FRANCISCO — Draymond Green didn’t exactly sing Kum-Ba-Yah during his press conference on Thursday afternoon. Nor does he think it’s necessary going forward. Especially if the Warriors end up winning another ring.
Earlier in the day, Draymond rejoined his teammates in practice for the first time since he punched Jordan Poole in the face last week. When asked about his relationship with Poole going forward, Green kept it cut and dry.
“We both know how to play basketball,” Green said. “And that is the most important thing for us. We're paid to do a job and we're gonna come to do that job to the best of our ability. We want to continue to win, so we wanna do what we have to do to win. Everything else outside of that, No. 1 will be handled amongst us and No. 2, it’s neither here nor there.”
While trusted Warriors veterans like Kevon Looney have told reporters that Draymond needs to work to rebuild his trust with his teammates, Green is hesitant to agree with those semantics.
“Everyone says, like, build trust as a team,” Green said. “I don't really quite understand what’s ‘trust’? Is it trust that you're gonna make the right play? … I think there's so many different things when I hear the word, ‘trust’ that I'm not always certain that that is the most fitting word for what people are trying to say. I think it always sounds good. Everyone kind of has this idea of what that means. But yet what does that truly mean?”
Playing devil’s advocate here, I think it’s easy to see how Green may have violated the trust of his teammates. Do they feel a full license to criticize or talk smack to Green now – without fear of a punch to the face? Will he have another explosion this season? Has he actually learned anything from this episode? Why would it be different from his previous blowups?
OK, so Green isn’t keen on the notion of “trust” issues on the team. Instead, Green said he’s focused on maintaining the “camaraderie” within the locker room.
“Just gotta make sure our team camaraderie is right,” Green said. “I think that’s always important. When you’re playing against a team and they have bad camaraderie, you can tell right away.”
Which begs the question, how can you have camaraderie without trust? At this point, we might be saying ‘to-may-to’ and Green is saying ‘to-mah-to.’
Whatever the case, he’s back now. The Warriors made it seem like it was business as usual at practice
“Everything felt pretty normal,” Looney said. “Everybody was loose, the music was playing."
Repeating for the title is the primary focus now. From the sounds of Draymond, any possible mending of his relationship with Poole is secondary and he thinks it’s none of the public’s business.
“What we do on a basketball court is most important,” Green said. “I think sometimes we get so caught up in analyzing people's lives instead of analyzing basketball."
On we ride then.
Green will be in the starting lineup Friday along with Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, Andrew Wiggins and Kevon Looney for the preseason finale against the Denver Nuggets at Chase Center. Poole is slated to come off the bench as a super sixth man.
Then the title chase begins with Tuesday’s regular-season opener at home against the Los Angeles Lakers.
“Jordan is a professional, and I’m a professional,” Green said. “ We have a job to do. We both have experienced a lot of winning over the course of our lives and we know what that takes, and so we want to do just that. What it takes to win. And I think that's the most important thing.”
