Draymond Green and Steve Kerr might have moved on from their little courtside debate the other day but it doesn’t seem like NBA analysts are just over it yet. Former NBA champion Paul Pierce, particularly has taken a rather tough stance on the subject, calling into question Green’s leadership abilities as a veteran member of the Golden State Warriors roster.
Advertisement
Green got into a visible disagreement with head coach Kerr during Monday’s win against the Orlando Magic and left for the locker room, missing out on the last 20 minutes of the game.
Leaked audio from the incident has since revealed an emotionally charged Green dropping the F-bomb while Kerr telling him to “go home.” Much has since been made of the incident, but both Green and Kerr have asserted that it was time to move on. Paul Pierce, however, remains critical of Green’s behavior, particularly the situation he put the Warriors in.
“You don’t walk out on your team. You’re a leader, Draymond. No, no, you’re not a leader. You are the leader,” Pierce stressed.
“Through good, through bad, you stay right there. You control it. As a leader, you gotta go, ‘Let me sit through it.’ You can’t lose it. Because everybody looks up to you. Your team follows your s***, everything you do, bro,” the former Celtics star said, sounding rather disappointed.
Pierce added that he could understand this kind of behaviour from Green when he was a younger player. “The older you get, these organizations don’t put up with that s***,” he suggested, adding that older players don’t produce results as they could in their prime.
Pierce is concerned that Green’s behavior could result in retaliation from the Warriors’ front office, which is not something he would want to witness, given just how synonymous he has been with that team. “I would like to see him retire at the Golden State Warriors,” he said.
“Draymond plays chess too, just like coaches play chess. Because sometimes coaches intentionally get thrown out of games to fire their team up. I have seen that. Draymond walked out, maybe to fire his team up,” Pierce suggested.
Pierce believes that Draymond walking away could have motivated the Warriors to get a big win over the Magic, but that seems a little far-fetched, to be fair.
Regardless, it seems like the Warriors are moving past it. Kerr recently revealed that Green had apologized to him and both of them had asked for the team’s forgiveness. The Warriors have now won two in a row, so hopefully they can build on that and get going. It’s going to be a long season; there’s no reason they would want to make it longer by dragging this out.
