Steve Kerr once again downplayed the negative effects of Draymond Green’s blowup at halftime last weekend and actually pointed out some of the positive impacts of it on the team.
During halftime of the Warriors’ eventual win over the Oklahoma City Thunder last Saturday, a frustrated Green blew up on his teammates and complained about not taking enough shots. Green shaped up enough for the team to win, but his blowup was one of the stories after the game.
During his show on KNBR Friday, Kerr elaborated on the matter.
“We both are competitive and passionate. I think with Draymond it just shows a lot more. … every once in a while we do get into it,” Kerr told hosts Tom Tolbert and Ray Ratto. “I would say last year we got into it four or five times where we yelled at each other. I’d cuss him out for some mistake and he’d yell back at me and a couple minutes later we’re hugging it up and all is good.”
Kerr did note that this blowup was different from many others.
“This one was more intense. Draymond was frustrated by a lot of things and I probably could have communicated better with him on the road trip. It just kind of erupted. Normally that stuff doesn’t make it outside the locker room but obviously national TV and Lisa Salters heard the whole thing so it became a story.
“But the one thing I’ll say about Draymond is he always comes back around. He’s got a huge heart, he’s an incredible competitor. Yeah, he’s going to get angry sometimes and he’ll take it out on me and I’ll take some things out on him, but we always come back around and we have incredible respect for each other. I wouldn’t trade him for any other power forward in the league, and that’s an easy call,” Kerr said in support of his player.
The Warriors head coach called the matter a “non-story” and said the confrontation was “good” for the team.
“He knows he went over the top on Saturday. Trust me, this is a non-story at this point.
“He’s really the one guy out of the whole group who is really brash and loud. I think you need that, I think you need that fire. And sometimes it’s important to get stuff out. I think that confrontation actually was good for us in a lot of ways,” Kerr said.
Who are we to disagree with Kerr about this? He knows his team and players well and won a title in his first season. The Warriors have won seven in a row and two straight since that victory over OKC where Green had the blowup. Green nearly recorded a triple double in the game after the OKC blowup too, indicating that he really as resilient as Kerr says.
