Former Golden State Warriors star Shaun Livingston shared his two cents on the punchup between Draymond Green and Jordan Poole, and how it impacted the entire season for a team that headed into 2022-23 as defending champs.
“I think this team maximized what it had from the standpoint of the energy,” he said on All The Smoke. “You guys know what teams have a chance based on how we rock with each other. You know what guys are rocking together and it is usually at the top with the best players. It starts there… coaches, GM, but the team, the players that’s what usually does it.”
“I think this year with the incident between Draymond [Green] and Jordan [Poole], some of the trust was lost, and it ricocheted throughout the locker room.”
The Warriors made the playoffs as the sixth seed but were outclassed by the Los Angeles Lakers in the second round of the playoffs. The beef between the veteran and the young guard was considered one of the major factors behind Golden State’s run but was also marred by injuries and inconsistency.
Earlier, head coach Steve Kerr echoed a similar sentiment saying the murky incident caused some of the faith and trust between teammates to take a hit.
“I think some of that was lost this year, for sure,” Kerr said when asked about the Warriors’ ethos in terms of culture, joy, and chemistry. “There’s no hiding from it, the incident with Draymond and Jordan at the beginning of the year played a role in that. It’s hard for that not to impact a team.”
There had been murmurs all season that the locker room camaraderie had been doomed by that punch. They weren’t the Warriors of seasons past, but instead, it was a bit of a cloudy environment, and that never changed till the end.
Draymond Green Felt The Punch Led To The Warriors Not Winning It In 2023
Green has been one of those players who wouldn’t mince words, and in what came as an honest admission, felt that his dustup played a part in the team’s dwindling fortunes.
“We’re not playing right now because when you speak about the foul and all the slippage we had on the road as a team, not being able to come together. None of those things happen if that (punching Poole) doesn’t happen because of the voice and departments I lead this team in, there was a ton of slippage due to me sitting back, not saying anything, me allowing that situation to play itself out and giving it time to heal. Why are you giving it time to heal?”
“I would say by February I started to feel like myself again but guess what, there were five months of the season where slippage kept occurring,” he further added. “By February, if the slippage has been going on for that long, you are who you are. You built those habits, so try to correct them then. You may get a little better, we ended up in the second round of the playoffs, but not at a championship level.”
There’s no denying that the Warriors weren’t their usual self, and with the team set to go through a transition in the summer, only time will tell if they will come back to the glory form they were in.
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