On Bleacher Report’s Chips, three-time NBA champ Draymond Green chops it up with some of the biggest stars in the league to discuss whatever chip they have on their shoulder. In the latest episode, Dray was joined by former teammate Kevin Durant for what’s easily one of the juiciest interviews of the year.
As hoop heads already know, Durant and Green eventually split ways after they engaged in a heated argument on the sidelines of a Los Angeles Clippers game in November 2018. During this fiery exchange that fractured the team, Dray dismissed Durant’s importance to the franchise (since Golden State had already won a championship in 2015 without him) and called him a “bitch” way too many times to count.
Nearly a year later, after moving on to the Brooklyn Nets, Durant admitted that his spat with Green “definitely” played a role in his decision to move on from the Warriors.
“For sure,” he admitted on ESPN’s First Take in October 2019. “I’m not gonna lie about it.”
The two have long since made amends, and were the best of buddies while leading the men’s USA basketball team to a gold medal during this summer’s Tokyo Olympics. But with Durant’s departure from Golden State still lingering as the massive elephant in the room, the two apparently felt that it was time to clear the air on Bleacher Report’s popular YouTube platform.
The interview is 24 minutes long in total, but when Dray asks about their infamous argument—the one that destroyed one of the most dominant dynasties in the history of professional sports—we finally get the answer we’ve all been waiting for.
“For my own personal sanity, how much did our argument against the Clippers drive you to ultimately leave the Warriors?” Green inquires.
“It wasn’t the argument,” Durant said. “It was the way that everybody—[head coach] Steve Kerr—acted like it didn’t happen. [President of Basketball Operations and General Manager] Bob Myers just tried to just discipline you and think that would put the mask over everything. I really felt like that was such a big situation for us as a group—the first time we went through something like that—we had to get that shit all out.”
He continued, “I remember watching The Last Dance, and when Scottie [Pippen] didn’t go into the game, the whole team—in the locker room—said, ‘Scottie, that was fucked up.’ We needed that. We just needed to throw all that shit out there on the table and say, ‘Yo, Dray. That was fucked up that we even had to go through that.’”
KD then goes on to say that the lack of collective accountability and communication “made shit weird” and rubbed him the wrong way. After allowing Durant to share his perspective, Green offered his own.
From Sports Illustrated:
Green said that when the team returned to Oakland from Los Angeles, he was pressured by the higher-ups—who he didn’t specifically name—to apologize to Durant. Green said he took issue with this and agreed to speak with Durant, but was clear management could not tell him what to say. They agreed Green would sleep on it and the next morning he would decide if he would apologize or not.
The next morning, when asked if he would apologize to Durant, the Michigan State alum kept it a little too real after the team informed him that he would be suspended one game for conduct detrimental to the team.
“‘Y’all are about to fuck this up,’” Green recalled telling the front office. “I said, ‘The only person that can make this right is me and K [Durant]. And there is nothing that y’all can do, and y’all are going to fuck this up.’ And in my opinion, they fucked it up.”
“I think so too,” Durant said.
Wow.
Golden State hasn’t made the playoffs in the two years since Durant’s departure, and it’s safe to say that if the Warriors’ front office could revisit that fateful moment, they’d absolutely handle that situation differently. I would also imagine that it’s also gonna be awkward as hell the next time Dray runs into either Kerr or Myers.