Draymond Green and Kevin Durant have a fascinating relationship, as the two former teammates starred together on one of the greatest basketball teams the NBA has ever seen, winning a pair of rings together. At their best, those Warriors teams felt unstoppable but eventually, the ride ended after apparent internal discord led to Durant’s eventual departure to Brooklyn.
The most visible conflict happened in a loss to the Clippers in November 2018, when Green didn’t give Durant the ball and then turned it over at the end of a loss, leading to some shouting that carried over into the locker room, as reporting indicated Green told Durant the Warriors don’t need him and he can leave. The two have insisted in the time since that it wasn’t really that big of a deal, but it made for an easy target for those wondering what happened to lead to Durant wanting out.
On Thursday, Green joined Durant on his podcast, The ETCs, and the two addressed that rather infamous blowup, what was said, what happened on the play from each’s perspective, and how they moved on from it.
Draymond: I got the rebound, obviously, and I took off up the court.
KD: Alright, now, now, now, let’s talk about that.
Eddie: It’s way funnier cause you fell. You went up the court and fell.
Draymond: I’m gonna tell you why I fell. I get up the court, K’s clapping for the ball and I’m taking off, he’s like, ‘HEY! C’mon!’ So I take it, I’m driving up the court, in my mind this was all that was about to happen. K’s about to come in for the trail, I’m about to cut straight across the court and pitch it back, he’s gonna walk into the three, we’re going home, we got a game tomorrow and play the Hawks. This is how this whole play’s gonna happen as I envision it. As I turn to go across the court for the pitch back, K has completely stopped coming. So I’m looking for him and as I’m looking for him to pitch back, I f*cking dribble the ball off my foot looking for him, and sh*t went all wrong.
KD: So I’m gonna give my perspective from the rebound. What I thought was supposed to happen. In my mind, this is how I played it out. We got the stop, I’m grabbing the rebound, I’m running up and as soon as I get across halfcourt, I’m shooting it. That was the disconnect. That was it, between us. I wanted the moment, Draymond seen it a different way, and that was the clash. I ain’t run back cause I was like, ‘Damn, I ain’t got this mother*cker in my hairs right now?’ I was so distraught, and then I snapped back into it, but by that time Shai Gilgeous had already got his hand in there. … Then boom, we get back to the huddle, then, go head Dray.
Draymond: So I’m walking off the court cause I turned that mother*cker over, and K yellin’, ‘Give me the mother*ckin ball!’ And I’m just looking at him and literally my response was, ‘I was f*cking passing you the ball if you f*ckin ran!’ So we’re walking back to the bench and that’s what’s said. I sit to the right, K’s to the left like three chairs over. He leans over and slaps the chair right next to me like, ‘N**** I said give me the f*cking ball.’ And that’s when I was like, ‘Yo, aye mother*cker I do this too. I was gonna give your ass the ball if you wasn’t b*tchin.’ I do this too.’ One thing said another, we argue, DeMarcus pulls me apart, tells me to shut the f*ck up, and I’m like, ‘Naw, that’s bullsh*t. Nobody says sh*t to K and all he had to do was f*ckin run and I was fixin to pitch him the f*ckin ball back. That’s bullsh*t.’ And then in my opinion, from there, everybody took it and made it this whole thing. To me it wasn’t a big deal because, Kevin has like, through this whole run, the only person that would really cuss me out was Kevin. So the only person that I’ve ever been cussed out by being him, very often I would always get that from K, so to me, did we get into a bad argument, yes. But, as far as like me and K, yeah he cussed me out all the f*ckin time.
It’s pretty funny to hear the two of them look back on it and recognize that they just simply miscommunicated on what each thought should happen on the play, and Green goes on to discuss how he felt the Warriors suspending him blew everything up more than it needed to be — although he admitted he said some “sh*t I shouldn’t have said,” which seems to indicate they left out some of the conversation, at least the locker room part, in this discussion. Still, Green didn’t love how the Warriors handled it and felt he and KD should’ve just been allowed to work through it themselves, noting they’d had blowups before and this wasn’t all that new, it just happened to be on national TV.
