Golden State Warriors: Draymond Green admits Jordan Poole punch wasn’t an instant reaction

With Jordan Poole controversially traded away from the Golden State Warriors last month, it appears former teammate Draymond Green is now more open to discussing that incident from training camp last year.

The future hall-of-famer shockingly king hit the young guard on October 5, with footage of the incident leaked just days later. It evidently fractured the pair’s relationship, impacting the entire team dynamic in a 2022-23 season that appeared doomed from the start.

Golden State Warriors’ forward Draymond Green has confirmed his punch to Jordan Poole in training camp was not an instant reaction.

Most assumed there was more to the incident given the footage showed Green punching Poole aggressively with no real physical confrontation beforehand. Speaking on a recent episode of ‘The Pat Bev Podcast with Rone’, Green admitted as much over nine months after the altercation took place.

"“I don’t just hit people. Dialogue of course happens over time and you usually ain’t just triggered by something, like…that fast, to that degree. You know what I’m saying, like this is a team. Ain’t nobody on my team triggering me in an instant. You know, we know stuff that you don’t say amongst men”, Green said."

Why Green feels compelled to continue discussing the topic is interesting, but clearly he feels liberated to speak his mind in the wake of Poole’s departure. It was becoming clear that the pair would struggle to co-exist on the same team for much longer, and Poole’s form during the postseason hardly helped matters either.

The 24-year-old was ultimately traded in a package for 38-year-old Chris Paul on draft day last month, that despite having yet to start a new four-year, $128 million contract the Warriors handed him shortly after the Green incident.

Although the franchise appeared as if they were prioritizing Poole in that instant, things clearly shifted after a season in which Poole was wildly inconsistent and where Green re-established himself as arguably the team’s second-most important player.

Just over a week after Poole’s departure, the Warriors confirmed their commitment to Green, wasting no time in signing the 33-year-old to a new four-year, $100 million contract to open free agency.