It's no surprise that the scandalous pre-season incident between Draymond Green and Jordan Poole has now resurfaced as the talk of the town following the Golden State Warriors' NBA Playoffs second-round exit at the hands of the Los Angeles Lakers. After all, folks are desperately trying to determine the reasons behind the defending champs' utter downfall this season.
Warriors vet Gary Payton II has now opened up about the temperature in the room once he arrived mid-season via an NBA trade deadline deal with the Portland Trail Blazers. GP2 was not around when Green knocked Poole out before the season started, but Payton admits that things weren't exactly like how he left it once he returned:
“I came back, you know, the guys are the guys,” Payton said (h/t Taylor Wirth of NBC Sports). “Everybody goes through stuff in life, their everyday stuff. I just try to come back and be myself, talk to guys, hang with guys, laugh with guys. The vibe was a little different, obviously.
“Just coming back from the beginning of the season and all that. When I got here, everybody was themselves. It was just trying to figure it out and continue to do what we had to do the rest of the season.”
Without directly saying it, it seems that Payton is hinting that the Warriors were still suffering the after-effects of Green's haymaker on Poole mid-way through the season. So much time had already passed when Payton rejoined the Warriors in February, but even GP2 had to admit that there was something different.
“It's basketball. You know guys are competitive and have emotions, so things happen,” Payton explained. “I've had fights with my little brothers all the time. But at the end of the day, we're brothers, and you learn from and grow from it and just be mature about it and continue to do what you need to do.”
Payton has also done his best to try and play down the impact of the fight on the entire squad, but it's not hard to read between the lines here.
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