Draymond Green made the headlines in mid-December after his flagrant 2 foul on Jusuf Nurkic which handed him an indefinite suspension. Soon after that incident, Kevin Durant publicly highlighted the importance of the Golden State Warriors star needing help to move forward. Following his comeback recently, Green candidly revealed how his former teammate’s comments made him extremely angry.
Advertisement
In the latest episode of The Draymond Green Show, he openly expressed his anger upon hearing the statements of Durant for the first time.
“It really pissed me off when Kevin Durant said, ‘He wasn’t like that when I was around. I hope he get the help he needs.'”
After that, he took his time to dissect the comments of the Phoenix Suns star as he reached a conclusion.
“What do you want the world to know about you? So I sat with myself and thought about that and I’m like, interestingly enough, the world still thinks I’m the same Draymond as I was in 2017 and the reality is I’m not. But I quite frankly has not allowed anyone in the world to see that growth, to see that change.”
Draymond after taking Durant’s statement in the right way realised that this was the time the world gets to know him. He said, “he(Kevin Durant) is acknowledging essentially what I want the world to know about me.”
The 4x champion then revealed his mindset about the word ‘help’ which Durant used, “‘ How he gonna say I need help?’ And when I went back through another lens, I was like, ‘Maybe you shouldn’t hear help so negatively. Maybe you’re listening to the word help with the same mindset that the word help meant when you were 15 years old”.
But in the end, Green did what mattered to him as he took things positively. The 33-year-old claimed to made a decision at that moment, which only made him ‘proud’ because, “I said, ‘You are ready for growth’. That’s a step in the right direction”.
This highlighted the potential development in the mindset of the power forward just as the NBA had intended. Since his suspension, the league has been vocal about him coming out as a better individual and growing from this situation. So, his comments displayed how the governing body might just have succeeded with their actions as Green conveyed maturity through his words.
A similar incident took place in the career of Draymond Green back in 2018
During a game against the Los Angeles Clippers, Green and Durant locked horns as teammates. It turned into a full-blown argument as the Warriors suspended Green following that incident. Three years since then, they sat together to take accountability for the situation while revealing the complications surrounding it.
Durant stated, “It wasn’t the argument,” before adding, “Steve Kerr acted like it didn’t happen. Bob Myers tried to just discipline you and think that that would put the mask over everything. I really felt like those—it was such a big situation for us as a group, the first time we went through something like that. We had to get that s–t all out”.
At that time, Green had agreed to the 2014 MVP’s statements but failed to go from it. Thus, he faced a similar challenge half a decade after that one and reacted in the same way. That’s why the current circumstances are allowing him a second opportunity to display his development to the basketball community. How he utilizes this chance would be interesting to witness.
