Report: Leaked Draymond video altered Warriors’ view of situation

Warriors

Report: Leaked Draymond video altered Warriors’ view of situation

The violent altercation between Draymond Green and Jordan Poole at practice on Wednesday certainly sounded bad at first, but a video of the altercation leaked to TMZ on Friday morning revealed just how serious the situation was. 

In speaking to reporters on Thursday, Warriors general manager Bob Myers addressed the incident, saying that discipline will be handled internally and did not believe it would result in Green being suspended for any regular season games. 

In a column written by The Athletic’s Marcus Thompson II on Friday, he cited sources in reporting that the Warriors’ view of the situation has been altered since the video leaked. 

“Multiple sources said their view of the situation is altered Thompson II writes. “Seeing Green walking up on Poole with obvious bad intentions. Seeing him respond to a baited shove from Poole with a ready swing. Seeing how much venom was behind the punch. That wasn’t the Draymond they knew. That was different than a chin-checking jab they presumed, the kind of measured punch you’d give your little brother.”

As The Athletic’s Anthony Slater pointed out on Twitter, some players, coaches and Warriors personnel that were on the practice floor when the incident took place had not seen the incident in real-time. 

ESPN’s Brian Windhorst joined Sportscenter on Friday, where he revealed that when veteran players were approached by Warriors leadership about possible punishment for Green, they were concerned about the veteran forward potentially missing the 2022-23 season opener against the Los Angeles Lakers, a night in which Golden State will receive their championship rings. 

“One of the things I have been told, when the Warriors’ leadership met with the team’s veterans over what to do about this situation, one of the concerns that the veterans had was that the first game of the season is ring night and any sort of suspension of a regular season game would have meant that Draymond potentially would have missed that important moment,” Windhorst said. “So that might have been a factor in the Warriors deciding, at least not initially, to suspend him. Now there are preseason games between now and then and there could be other action taken, but the Warriors’ initial move when this became public was to search for how it was released more than anything.”

RELATED: Draymond’s punch to Poole has layers of issues for Warriors

After the video was leaked to TMZ, the Warriors immediately opened an investigation into the source of the leak. Now facing mounting pressure from the public and having seen the altercation play out on video — some within the organization seeing it for the first time — the Warriors might end up altering course and potentially could hand down a stricter punishment. 

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