Draymond Green left the Warriors’ win over the Washington Wizards on Saturday early with a calf injury, but the veteran forward still had something to say after the game.
Jordan Poole, whom Green infamously punched during a preseason Warriors practice in October 2022, is on the Wizards now — and he made it clear he still has love for a majority of his former teammates after dropping 38 points at Chase Center on Saturday.
“Yeah, I love those guys over there. I love most of those guys over there,” Poole told reporters after the game. “A really good group. A really good staff. Shout out to the fans. I saw a lot of 3 jerseys out there, a lot of JP3 jerseys, which is always really cool. I always get a lot of love [here]. I spent some good quality time here, and it’s dope to see it appreciated.”
After the first part of that quote was shared on X, formerly known as Twitter, by Andscape’s Marc J. Spears following the game, Green responded to what seemed like some subtle shade from Poole.
I really am sorry
Green and Poole both have spoken about the incident on several occasions since it occurred over two years ago, with the Warriors forward recently describing it as one of the low points of his NBA career.
“I’ve always been a guy that no matter what, if someone’s younger than me, I always want to pour into them,” Green told Penny Hardaway last month on the “Two Cents Podcast.” “And I will say I kind of got thrust into a vet role before I was ready to handle it before I knew what it took to handle it. And I failed miserably.
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“One of my biggest failures as a vet was what happened with Jordan Poole. It took me to go through that failure with Jordan Poole, who was someone that came in and chose his locker to be next to me because he wanted to learn from me. [He] was someone that I would spend time with and that I would pour into, and I [f–ked] it all up.”
Poole, meanwhile, has been more blunt about the situation and his relationship with Green in the aftermath.
“I don’t have no answer for you,” Poole told The Ringer’s Logan Murdock about where things stand with Green after the Warriors were eliminated from the NBA playoffs in 2023. “Other than that, we was just on the court and teammates, and we was out there trying to win games.
“What I do recall saying at the beginning of the season is that, ‘We’re coming. We’re going to come out here. We’re going to play on the court. We’re going to try to win a championship.’ We were teammates. It’s just business, honestly. And that’s really all it was, it is, it has been. It’s just been business. It’s been basketball.”
Green has experienced plenty of highs and lows since the punch, including an indefinite suspension last season for repeated on-court altercations. But the 34-year-old hasn’t gotten into any trouble so far during the 2024-25 NBA season — a sign that he perhaps has grown into his leadership role.
And with his post Saturday night, it’s appears Green remains filled with remorse over the incident.
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