“It Was a Misunderstanding”: Steve Kerr Clears Up What Happened in the Timeout Incident With Draymond Green

It’s been over a week since Steve Kerr and Draymond Green went at each other on the Warriors bench during what would eventually be a win over the Magic. In that time, people around the NBA have been wondering exactly what was said that caused Draymond to leave the bench and head to the locker room.

Kerr did address the issue last week, though he spent most of a special 15-minute media session speaking about Draymond’s importance to the team and not necessarily discussing clear details of how the incident went down.

The Warriors head coach also made it clear how much he values Draymond’s leadership, and expressed a desire for him to retire a Warrior one day. “First of all, it was a misunderstanding,” Kerr said.

“Draymond was talking to the refs, and I had called a timeout because I thought we had lost our focus. I wasn’t mad at him, but he was talking to the ref for a long time, and then I see five of our players over there trying to bring him back. And he had been ejected the night before, and so I started yelling his name, ‘Draymond, Draymond!’ Basically just asking him to get to the huddle,” he continued.

Kerr appeared on The Tom Tolbert Show yesterday, and he finally gave some details on the blow-up.

“He thought I was yelling at him because of a turnover he had just made, and so he says something snarky, I say something back snarky, and next thing you know, we’re yelling at each other, we’re at each other’s throats, and then it all comes to bear. But I should have been calmer in that time,” Kerr explained the misunderstanding between the long time colleagues.

Some have criticized Kerr for enabling Draymond’s bad behavior over the years, but he’s always correctly made the calculation that the Warriors need the edge that the veteran brings more than they’re hurt by his occasional nonsense. Even in this incident, Kerr could have gotten some personal satisfaction by calling Draymond out and punishing him, but how does that help the team?

The Warriors won that game against the Magic, going on a big run to close out the game after Draymond left the bench. They’ve gone on to win three of four since, with their only loss occurring on the road in overtime to the Raptors.

When he met with the media last week, Kerr called the fight, “Not my finest hour.” Draymond also addressed it on his podcast, explaining that he left the bench to avoid escalating the situation further and causing a distraction for the team.

When competing at the highest level, sometimes emotions run high. Both Kerr and Draymond have been known as emotional guys throughout their career and sometimes things can escalate. “I can lose my mind, Draymond can lose his, and every once in a while, we lose it with each other,” he sighed.

“As I said the next day, I would never, ever want to go into a basketball game, a big basketball game, without Draymond Green. He’s just an amazing big-game player and champion. So we’re gonna ride this thing out together and we’re gonna be fine,” Kerr added, insisting on the importance of a figure like the 4 time NBA champion as a locker room leader.

Kerr and Draymond have butted heads before, but any time there’s been friction between the two, they’ve always figured out how to sort it out and move past it. It looks like they have here, too, and now they’re both hoping that they can recapture some of the success they’ve had in the past one last time.