No matter how many NBA championships he wins, Golden State Warriors veteran Draymond Green can’t seem to escape the ‘temperamental’ allegations. Quite recently a viral social media post detailed everything that went on between him and Jordan Poole, with head coach Steve Kerr telling the young gun to stand up to him. And now, former Warriors star Klay Thompson has been put on the spot.
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Now, the Golden State Warriors are a highly successful franchise, make no mistake about that. Led by the ever-reliant Stephen Curry, they have bagged 4 NBA championships since 2015. But they have also rendered the services of some mercurial athletes.
And while that has mostly translated to success on the court, off the court, things have been mighty different at times. Thompson recently joined Michael Cooper on YouTube, where he cleared the air about some of these avoidable instances.
Thompson begins by asserting that back in the day, NBA players could really take a swing at each other without making much of a fuss since it was a time before the camera phone and the internet. And even though cameras still followed athletes more than the laymen in his early GSW days, they still weren’t as prevalent as they are now.
Although things don’t get as violent anymore, Thompson argues that off the court, the competitive behavior does lead to more or less the same type of incidents. “There are going to be times where you just bicker with your teammates or there’s going to be friction because we spend every day together and we are like a travelling band,” he asserted.
Calling it a brotherhood, Thompson claims that when you have a championship to win, that competitive mindset trickles down from the head coach to the last man on the bench, which makes a team great.
“For us, there have been a lot of scuffle … lot of bad words said and feelings hurt. But at the end of the day, we know we just want to win,” the 4-time NBA champion pointed out.
“There were times there would be friction, whether it be Draymond and I, or Steph and I, or Coach and I. It’s just part of it. And you grow from it. You be man enough to leave that on the court and be a professional about it,” Thompson admitted, adding that once you wear the team colors, none of it matters since everyone’s goals are aligned.
Now, one can question the romanticization of such behavior of they like, but clearly, whatever went on in the Warriors locker room worked. Along with Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant, he was part of one of the greatest dynasties in the NBA and will surely be a Hall of Famer once he calls it a day.
