The Golden State Warriors have been forced to make several adjustments since 2015, when Steph Curry, Draymond Green, and Klay Thompson won their first title. One of those adjustments was Green’s role in the Warriors’ offense after acquiring Kevin Durant in 2016. With Durant holding a significant stake in the offense from 2016-2019, Green had to find new ways to impact the game, which has helped shape him into the player he is today.
“I’ve never really been one to think about the stats, per se, but when KD came to this team, I was like: ‘Yo, I just need to have an impact, I need to impact this game in whatever way I can. Period,'” Green said to Shams Charania of The Athletic.
“Sometimes that may be 15 points. Sometimes that may be two points, 10 assists, and 11 rebounds. Sometimes it may be two, four, and six, right? It doesn’t matter. But you can feel the impact on the game when I’m in a groove. Some of my best games I’ve ever had in my career was like two points, and yet you can feel the total impact on the game. So that’s what I try to focus on.”
Draymond Green Calls Kevin Durant’s Exit ‘Slap in the Face’
Durant surprised everyone by electing to join the Brooklyn Nets in 2019. Mainly because Warriors star Steph Curry had taken a backseat to the former MVP. He did it willingly, despite having won a championship with the franchise before KD arrived in 2016. Though Green says Durant’s decision to leave felt like a ‘slap in the face,’ he insists there are no hard feelings.
“There’s always things you want to prove. Ultimately, when Kevin came here, the main person who has to sign off on that is Steph. So, to open your door, to open your arms and accept someone with open arms, and it goes great and it’s short-lived, it’s a slap in the face,” Green said to Vincent Goodwill of “Yahoo Sports”.
“Not necessarily a slap in the face, when someone chooses to do something else. But a slap in the face like, ‘I opened my home to you. I brought you into this. I made you a part of this. I wanted you to be a part of this until we couldn’t do it no more. Then when you wanna do something else.’ No hard feelings, no ill will, want you to do great no matter what. It’s a brotherhood.”
Kevin Durant Sounds off on Altercation With Draymond Green
The consensus around the NBA community was that Durant left the Warriors to join the Nets because of a public dispute between him and Green during a primetime matchup against the Los Angeles Clippers in 2019.
But according to Durant, he was more upset about how the situation got handled by Warriors brass than he was about what was said to him.
“It wasn’t the argument,” Durant said to Green during an appearance on “Chips.” “It was the way that everybody — Steve Kerr acted like it didn’t happen. Bob Myers tried to just discipline you and think that that would put the mask over everything. I really felt like that was such a big situation for us as a group, the first time we went through something like that. We had to get that s—t all out.”
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Draymond Green Addresses Suns’ Kevin Durant: ‘It’s a Slap in the Face’