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The Golden State Warriors have announced that Jonas Jerebko will be starting at power forward tonight as the latest in a day full o drama, which is somewhat captured in the team’s inactive.
Tonight’s Starting Lineups: pic.twitter.com/XIkXfXwaff
— Warriors PR (@WarriorsPR) November 14, 2018
Unless you’ve decided to completely ignore social media and TV tonight — and more power to you if you have — you’ve probably already heard about what’s going on between Golden State Warriors stars Draymond Green and Kevin Durant.
In case you missed it, here’s a quick recap:
- Daniel Hardee briefly chronicled a few links from the morning about a disagreement between Durant and Green about a botched play during the final moments of regulation. Most of the Golden State of Mind staff pretty much agreed that it was no big deal and that the whole thing would blow over.
- Later this morning, there were multiple reports that the altercation continued into the locker room after game, as Brady Klopfer described just before lunch. Even at that point, most of us were like, “Huh. That’s weird. But surely this is all much ado about nothing.”
- Then this afternoon, the floodgates of reporting broke open and we found out that this hadn’t yet blown over, Green was going to sit out for tonight’s game and eventually that he would be suspended for tonight’s game. We tried to cover that in our afternoon roundtable about the issue that Brady and Duby Dub Dubs put together.
As Poor Man’s Commish of Let’s Go Warriors tweeted earlier this slow drip of news and rumors from national and local media throughout the day makes a lot more sense when you think about it as the setup for a suspension.
Actually makes a whole lot more sense to me now w/ Draymomd being suspended. At first, I'm like, who would leak something from the locker room to a Shams? Trainer? Security guard? Who? How?
— Poor Man's Commish (@poormanscommish) November 13, 2018
Then you see little morsels of info going out to each major NBA writer. This is elite PR.
Since then, there’s been a ton more details coming out — big and small — that we’ve all been keeping tabs on. And, to put it simply, things seem pretty serious at this point.
First, it’s nearly impossible to think this is somehow unrelated to Durant’s upcoming free agency. Anthony Slater on The Athletic reported this evening that Durant’s free agency was actually somewhat central to the argument as it carried into the locker room.
The disagreement...spilled into a bigger picture and more personal realm: Durant’s free agency, the most sensitive subject currently looming over the franchise.
Green stabbed at it both in the huddle and later in the locker room, apparently doing so viciously enough that the team deemed it necessary to discipline him severely.
Of course, both Myers and Steve Kerr have insisted that this is not about Durant’s free agency.
Steve Kerr on if Kevin Durant’s noncommittal to free agency has been an awkward issue to handle in the locker room: “Not in the slightest bit.”
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) November 14, 2018
Bob Myers on the Kevin Durant free agency component plays into this pic.twitter.com/4CLNTA1Ok2
— Mark Medina (@MarkG_Medina) November 14, 2018
Nevertheless, it’s hard to disagree with Tim Kawakami’s on this: no matter how much they try to avoid the free agency thing, it seems like this is just the first major public signal that it really is A Thing.
This franchise is walking on eggshells around the Durant free-agency situation. They don't want to say so, necessarily, but they are. Again, wrong time, wrong way but feels like Draymond's outburst was a pressure release. Let's see what the mood is now--over the next few days.
— Tim Kawakami (@timkawakami) November 14, 2018
Anyway, with all that’s going on, Kerr declined to say would start tonight in Green’s place. But safe to say we haven’t heard the last of this story.
Steve Kerr, on who he'll start at PF tonight: "I'm not going to tell you. I'm not in a very good mood tonight."
— Connor Letourneau (@Con_Chron) November 14, 2018
Feel free to share your thoughts on that game in the comments below. There are hundreds of comments about the Green suspension and disagreement with Durant linked above.