I guess you don’t mess with Draymond Green and get away with it. A new video leaked to TMZ today showed the utter rocket of a right fist Draymond Green laid on his Golden State Warriors teammate Jordan Poole a few days ago.
What could have caused such an outburst from Draymond Green? To be honest, I wasn’t even going to cover this story as there are hundreds of ‘practice fights’ across the four major North American sports leagues every single year. They almost always are either blown way out of proportion or didn’t even happen like the way they are reported in the first place.
In this case, however, this fight was even worse than what was reported.
In essence, the video showed that Draymond Green not only pressed a smaller, less imposing man in Jordan Poole into the wall of the gym, but also kind of sucker punched him as Poole definitely wasn’t expecting to be punched.
Like I said, I’ve got no idea what Jordan Poole said to upset Green so much, but whatever it was, it must have been really bad as this punch was not something you’d expect to see from the teammates of the defending NBA Champions. If Jordan Poole was blatantly disrespecting Draymond Green to that point of frustration for Green, then Poole simply got what he deserved.
However, if it wasn’t as bad as this punch suggested, then Draymond Green better be extremely nervous about his short-term and long-term future with the Golden State Warriors.
You can’t ‘sucker punch’ (if that’s what one wants to call it) your teammate, especially if he’s a smaller guy, and expect to get away with it without punishment. I’d expect some kind of fine or maybe even an internal one or two game suspension (without pay) as Draymond Green really looks like he’s in the wrong on this one.
As for his long-term future, it just so happens that both he and Poole are in the final years of their contracts. And, with Draymond Green being 32, asking for a 4-year, $100M+ extension, and seeing a visible decline in his on-court production, while Jordan Poole is only 23, a far more proficient scorer and dribbler, and the future of this franchise, I can’t see the Warriors siding with Draymond over Poole if these two can’t work out their differences.
Unfortunately, Draymond Green has become the ‘weak link’ (so to speak) of the Warriors ‘Big 3’ and is the most easily replaced member of the starting line-up. Even without this bust-up, Green may have founded his welcome revoked in the Chase Center.
Hopefully, for his sake, these two can make up and get back to playing championship-winning basketball as there will be a lot of teams in the NBA this season looking to dethrone them and finish this dynasty once and for all.
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