When Draymond Green punched Jordan Poole during the 2022 Golden State Warriors training camp, many assumed it to be the breaking point of the franchise’s season. Raymond Felton agreed with this view on the To The Baha podcast. He even claimed that the fiasco should have never resulted in anything other than a typical brawl.
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Felton suggested that Green and Poole should have resolved their issues like adults. He believed they needed to get into the locker room, hash things out, and put their differences behind them. The 40-year-old argued that handling it this way might have improved things for the organization.
“We gotta fight. Only way I can move on without getting traded, let’s just fight… Let us go in the locker room, no cameras around. I don’t want nobody to know. I don’t even care if nobody else is in there. Nobody needs to be in there. Just let us fight and then we’ll be cool. I go home, he go home regardless of what happened to our faces or to each other. I can live with that.”
Felton substantiated his thoughts by reflecting on his career. He recounted getting into an on-court brawl with his former New York Knicks teammate, Carmelo Anthony. Despite the altercation, their bond never weakened. Instead, the heated exchange perhaps strengthened their friendship as they remained close.
“Me and Melo has gotten into it before on the court. Me trying to run a play and Melo breaking the play just to get the ball and we have gotten into it. But not to point where it’s like, ‘I ain’t f*cking with you no more.'”
Felton’s perspective undoubtedly comes across as a better alternative, given the long-term implications of the fiasco. For context, the altercation caused the Warriors to stumble even before the season began. Controversies about team dynamics and rumors of rifts within the roster started to surface.
This turmoil affected their performance. Despite entering the 2022/23 season as defending champions, the Warriors ended up as the 6th seed in the West with a lackluster 44-38 record. Their playoff run was brief as the Los Angeles Lakers defeated them 4-2 in the first round.
Soon after, the Warriors traded Poole to the Washington Wizards to bring in veteran Chris Paul. They also re-signed Green to a 4-year, $100 million extension. All these moves had severe repercussions for everyone involved.
On one hand, Poole didn’t quite become the leader the Wizards hoped for. His career average in points dropped by 3 points per game, and his field goal percentage also suffered. At one point, he was even taken out of the starting lineup.
On the other hand, the Warriors struggled with team chemistry. While Paul was an elite facilitator, he couldn’t replicate Poole’s 20.4 points per game from the previous season. This proved costly for the franchise as the young core failed to fill the gap for much of the campaign.
This entire sequence of events led to one of the biggest ‘what-if’ moments in NBA history and taught everyone a harsh truth about teamwork.
