Chef Curry cools things down

When things get tight, the Golden State Warriors always have the NBA’s best emergency weapon in Steph Curry. So when Draymond Green punched Jordan Poole during a practice altercation, the team passed the mic to Curry. He downplayed the rift between younger players and the veterans, but acknowledged that “It’s important how we handle the situation, how Draymond (handles it).” But he also had praise for his longtime teammate.

That was the message team-wide: We love Draymond. But don’t punch people. GM Bob Myers revealed his disappointment with Green’s actions, but reiterated how much he likes Draymond in general.

“Draymond is one of my favorite players. I told him that, but I just said, ‘You’re better than this. Don’t do this. Don’t do this to yourself and put yourself in this position.’ Still love the person. Don’t love what he did, but still love the guy.”

Myers has always stuck by Draymond Green, memorably sitting with him at an A’s game when he was suspended from Game Five of the NBA Finals in 2016. He also played down the idea that Poole’s potential big contract was causing tension within the team, saying that the initial conflict was a “normal argument in a scrimmage.”

While it’s natural to think that Poole getting an extension at the same time Green goes into a contract year created tension, the team insists that wasn’t what led to the fight. Steve Kerr said that Poole’s attitude in camp had been “fantastic.”

And Chef Curry concurred, saying, “JP’s been great. There was nothing that warranted the situation yesterday, to make that clear.”

Curry also added that he didn’t expect the fight to derail anything going into the upcoming season.

All of this jibes with Andre Iguodala’s original reaction last night when Chris Haynes tweeted that a “change in behavior” from Poole led up to the incident. Iguodala shot back.

So in conclusion, it doesn’t seem like the incident is any deeper than Draymond Green losing control and making a poor decision. It’s not a big enough deal that Green will be suspended for any game. Someone tried to do damage control with Haynes, and the team has pretty emphatically shot the “Jordan Poole is a prima donna” theory down. Also, he didn’t talk about building his own pool and calling it “Jordan’s pool.” He’s an NBA player. If he wanted to, he can already afford a pool.

The ultimate conclusion is that Steph Curry is the ultimate closer, on and off the court. And if Bob Myers could pay him more, he would.

UPDATE: TMZ has published the video and it doesn’t look good! I think we can assume the Warriors’ damage control strategy didn’t account for the possibility of video evidence of Draymond’s sucker punch. No wonder they were all backing up Poole.