It’s been a very weird week for the Golden State Warriors, as the team opted to suspend Jordan Bell for Wednesday’s game against the Memphis Grizzlies, citing “conduct detrimental to the team.” It was later reported that the suspension was the result of Bell charging a hotel expense to assistant coach Mike Brown.
Shortly after that news broke, it was revealed through social media that Bell was partaking in a team-wide prank that wasn’t supposed to extend to coaches, but he didn’t appear to realize that. While the team wasn’t particularly lenient, it didn’t appear that Bell had any malicious intent.
With the event in the rear view mirror, Bell sat down with Logan Murdock of NBC Sports Bay Area to candidly discuss the situation. He had a positive approach, and took responsibility for the incident.
“I made an error of judgment and I thought I was doing something funny, and it wasn’t,” Bell said. “But I apologized to the individuals involved, and I hope to continue to move forward from this mistake. . . I think everybody knows it was something I thought would be funny, as a joke that turned out not to be the way someone else took it, as a joke. So I have to be respectful of people’s space, and even though I think something’s funny, it might not be funny to them. Just to chill out.”
Bell said that things are fine with the coaches, stating, “I think we’re good. We talked about it.” He also discussed the desire to get the real story out in the open because of the theories on Twitter that were making it back to his family members.
The whole interview, which features Bell describing a “rough” season, in which minutes have been hard to come by, is very much worth reading.