Warriors Draymond Green Speaks of 'Opportunity to Redeem Myself' After Punching Wizards Jordan Poole
The Washington Wizards became part of a Golden State Warriors storyline when they agreed to acquire guard Jordan Poole in an offseason trade just this year.
That's because the 24-year-old Poole's arrival to the Wizards was viewed by many as the ending of the story involving former Warriors teammate Draymond Green and the punch that thrust the NBA into the spotlight before the 2022 season ever began.
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But it's not the end, at least not for Green who admitted this May that his actions in that moment likely cost Golden State a shot at another title.
"We're not playing [in the Western Conference Finals] because when you speak about the fouling when you speak about all of the slippage that we had as a team on the road not being able to come together, none of those things happens if that (punching Poole) doesn't happen," Green told ESPN's Stephen A. Smith during the Denver Nuggets championship run. "Because the voice that I am, and the departments that I lead this team in, there was a ton of slippage due to me sitting back...me trying to allow that situation to play itself out...but while you're giving it all of that time, guess what?...there was five months of a season where slippage has just been occurring."
Mandatory Credit: John Hefti-USA TODAY Sports
That was in May, but it's clear even now that Poole is in Washington, that Green is still weighing the impact of his actions over 11 months later.
"What gave me doubt is that I didn't know if I would have the opportunity to redeem myself," Green said in a recent ESPN interview. "Not [because] that thing necessarily happened. It's that, do you have an opportunity to make it right, or is that just it? It doesn't change what happened. It doesn't change that I was at fault."
Green's question wasn't about falling because he knew he had.
With one action in a heated moment, Green lost the trust of a teammate, but also some of the trust from the rest of his team that relies on him to be available and smart in the hottest of NBA battles.
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To Green's point, he was unable to lead from the front as much because of his actions that day, and perhaps it cost Golden State a shot at another title.
He certainly lost trust within the organization, and now the Warriors have lost a talented young member of the roster in hopes that Green's efforts to redeem himself will prove fruitful.
Meanwhile, the Wizards are hoping on another pathway, the one where Poole gets to leave all of that behind and become one of the key pieces in a Washington basketball rebirth.
Find David Harrison on Twitter @DHarrison82
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