Photo: Adam Glanzman
The Golden State Warriors started their title defense last night with a resounding drubbing of the Los Angeles Lakers and it seems like the elephant in the room did not factor in. The animosity between teammates Draymond Green and Jordan Poole was nowhere to be seen and Dan chalks it up to the maturity of Poole, not Green. And Poole must continue to be the grownup because it doesn’t appear Green is able, nor has any desire, to rein himself in anytime soon. He’s still occasionally good enough for the Warriors to put up with, but Poole is clearly the more valuable player in the long run.
Dan Patrick: “It’s going to be incumbent upon Jordan Poole to be the grownup here, because Draymond Green doesn’t care about being a grownup here. He’s almost embraced the fact that he dropped Jordan Poole and this benefits him...I do pause when I think about how this can affect this team, because this won’t be the only incident that Draymond Green has this year. And he’s not good enough to get away with this as much as he used to, but he is occasionally good enough and that might be good enough for Steve Kerr and the ownership to put up with this. Do I look at this long term with Draymond Green? I can’t see that. Jordan Poole is more long term than Draymond Green.”