Dub Hub, Daily Warriors Links for 6/9/23: Festus Ezeli believes Draymond Green and Jordan Poole can rebuild their relationship

Good Morning Dub Nation,

It’s no secret that the chemistry in the Golden State Warriors’ locker room was off this past season. Among multiple issues, the preseason practice incident between Draymond Green and Jordan Poole had the biggest impact as it festered over the team throughout the year. The fallout from the altercation caused some to question if the two can still coexist, however, former Warriors’ center Festus Ezeli is not one of them as he believes their relationship can be salvaged during this critical upcoming offseason.

Via NBC Sports Bay Area:

“I really do believe that everyone deserves a second chance and I believe you can always rebuild whatever you’ve broken,” Ezeli said on the latest “Dubs Talk” episode. “But it takes time. That’s why I think this summer is so huge for the Warriors. The punch, the incident at practice, that stuff happens all the time. People fight. It was the timing. It was the people who it was between. It’s an older leader of a team with a young, upcoming star. It was a contract year. All the speculation you see in the media, all that stuff doesn’t help. And then top it all off with the fact that the whole public got to watch this and make whatever decisions or judgments they could make about this situation without really knowing all the facts.

After the Warriors’ season ended, more information came out on how the locker room dynamic was affected by the punch. Though it appeared the two put the incident behind them for the sake of the team, Green explained that it forced him to take a step back from a leadership standpoint during this appearance on ESPN last month.

As Green mentions, their chemistry seemingly got better towards the latter half of the year as the Warriors closed out the regular season winning eight out of their last 10 games. Adding to that, Golden State won a championship just a year ago with both Green and Poole playing significant roles. There’s optimism that this relationship — and thus the Warriors’ championship aspirations — can still be saved, but as Ezeli says, it will be up to the two of them to work things out.

“... I thought that this team did not have the right environment for Jordan Poole to really thrive under the leadership of Draymond, Steph and Klay. There was already that adversity, all that stuff going on in the background. How they can fix it? I think this summer is going to be big for team chemistry. I think they have to figure out how they can get together for a second and really just squash the beef.”

Here are the rest of today’s stories:

In case you missed it from Golden State of Mind:

• The possible Draymond Green scenarios
• Where will Chris Paul go if waived by the Suns?
• Patrick Baldwin Jr. is the Grand Marshal at Saturday’s NASCAR Xfinity Series race
• Steve Kerr discusses the ‘hollow feeling’ stemming from Bob Myers’ exit
• The exhausting nature of a basketball lifer

Other Warriors News:

• Why Ezeli is confident Draymond-JP relationship can be fixed (NBC Sports Bay Area)
• Dell Curry supports idea of Steph, Seth teaming up on Warriors (NBC Sports Bay Area)
• Friedell: Surprised if Klay Thompson gets ‘mega money’ from Warriors (95.7 The Game)
• Nuggets-Heat Game 3 reaction: Jokic & Murray make history, too much for Butler (The Draymond Green Show)
• Does Finals rookie Christian Braun prove that GSW messed up the young guys? Not at all. (Dub Nation HQ)

NBA News:

• Newest NBA Rules Could Hurt These Five Teams Most Starting This Offseason (Bleacher Report)
• Nikola Jokic’s Postgame Speech After Game 2 Stunned Teammates (Bleacher Report)
• Jaylen Brown’s trades, Joe Mazzulla’s media persona and more: Celtics mailbag (The Athletic)
• Clippers draft analysis: Paul George trade talk, breaking down prospects and more (The Athletic)
• Dear basketball media: please stop lumping the Knicks in with teams that need a point guard (SB Nation)

A tweet to end the week:

Off-the-court drama has been a common theme throughout the league this offseason. Fortunately, that’s not the case for the Warriors’ Stephen Curry who continued his tremendous charitable work in the Oakland community this week through his Eat.Learn.Play. Foundation. Have a good weekend Dub Nation!