One of the biggest games the Golden State Warriors played during the 2015-16 regular season was on February 27 when they visited the Oklahoma City Thunder. Aside from a winning result and endless clips of Stephen Curry‘s 37-foot three-pointer that left Oklahoma City fans stunned with 0.6 seconds to go on the clock, was the locker room tirade that forward Draymond Green had with head coach Steve Kerr at halftime.
ESPN sideline reporter Lisa Salters had the scoop on the conversation for the brief 50 seconds she happened to be around the visitors' locker room door.
“I'm standing outside the locker room with the Oklahoma City police, which are always stationed outside of every locker room,” Salters recalled to ESPN's Ethan Sherwood Strauss. “They kind of moved me aside, and the officer just kind of stood by the door, with his hand on his weapon like he was trying to determine what he should do. It was clear that something bad was about to happen in this locker room. We've never heard anything like this before.”
With a less than a minute to report what was happening, Salters had in truth only a mere fraction of the action inside the locker room, one so unnerving that a security official stood by the door in a SWAT-like pose, ready to bust in the door if the shouting progressed.
“This was something extraordinary that was happening,” Salters said.
The Warriors were trailing by 11 at halftime, which for a team boasting a 52-5 record at the time, is the definition of “getting their butt whooped.” Green had just taken two ill-advised threes with shooters on the corners and the tension between him and Kerr had gone beyond the boiling point.
Inside the visitors locker room, he's hollering “I am not a robot!” toward Kerr. When he tells him to sit down, Green screamed,“Motherf—er, come sit me down!”
When he goes after Kerr, his teammates, including Curry and Klay Thompson, step in to prevent a potential disaster.
“I am not a robot! I know I can play! You have me messed up right now! If you don't want me to shoot, I won't shoot the rest of the game!,” Green shouted to Salters' recollection.
According to private sources close to the team, Green's teammates responded by voting to fine him. When asked a week later about the fine, Green, likely tired of the constant questions from the media said: “I asked to be fined. You can report that!”
In their attempts to bring the story to a close, the Warriors brokered a sit-down between him and Salters.
Salters recalls telling him: “What kind of bothered me about it was hearing the pain that was in your voice — you weren't just mad, you were in pain, emotional pain.”
Kerr insists that what happened, while unusual, wasn't a unique situation:
“If it didn't happen, it would be kind of weird,” he said. “It would be like nobody is revealing anything to each other. You have to let stuff out as a team. Rage means that's happening.”
Green is a loose cannon in every sense of the word, his best and worst assets are that he is an emotional player that plays his heart out night-in and night-out.
While he had become a more reliable shooter under former coach Mark Jackson and kept steady his first year under Kerr, the truth is that while he can potentially make three-pointers, the coaching staff prefers the majority of attempts going to the sharpshooters, which is no surprise.
Draymond Green finished the game in Rodman-like fashion, scoring only two points on 0-for-8 shooting, but collecting 14 rebounds, 14 assists, six steals, and four blocks. It was an incredible stat-line that played a huge role in the Warriors 121-118 overtime win over the Thunder.
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