Draymond Green shared a heated on-court moment with teammate Buddy Hield in the Warriors’ win over the Suns on Saturday night and he has explained himself.
Green was not happy with Hield after a Warriors turnover and the broadcast mic caught him very clearly saying to Buddy, “Wake the f–k up. Or go sit the f–k down. S–t.”
After the game, Green says he was trying to be a leader for Buddy as he learns to play with him.
“As a leader you have to try different methods. Sometimes you go to a guy, sometimes you don’t,” Green told reporters. “I’ve played with Buddy now for 30 games. Trying to learn what makes him tick, you’ve got to try different methods. Jonathan Kuminga, I go to, and I say, ‘Hey, this is what I need you to do. Look at this this way.’ He’ll go do it. If I yell at him, I don’t think he’s going to do it. He [won’t] listen.
“Steph [Curry], sometimes I go to him, sometimes I yell at him. He reacts to both. As a leader, one thing I learned from [Michigan State coach Tom Izzo] about leadership, you have to lead guys that make up a team. But leading someone doesn’t look the same as leading the next guy. And you got to figure out what makes guys tick. What gets that guy going. So, I’m still figuring that out. To go at Buddy the way I did, we needed that in that moment. We were flat, just turned the ball over. Lock in. That’s no shot at Buddy. Dennis [Schrӧder] was at me the other day. He’s been here for two weeks and he was at me the other day. Great, it is what it is.
“Mics catch everything today. I don’t care. I’ll say it right into the mic. I don’t give a damn.”
Green says that moments like happen all the time and Hield won’t take it personally.
“…Don’t be the guy that can’t be yelled at, and I’ll never be that guy. A teammate yelled at me? Great. I may say something back. Oh well, guess what? Buddy said something back to me. We’re not dictators. It’s just what you say doesn’t go and everyone has to listen. He said something back, I said something back, he said something back, I said something back.
“We moved on and that’s how it’s got to be. It’s not always going to be peaches and cream. Whoever thinks that are idiots. We lost three in a row. We have a turnover at a critical part of the game where we need to get a good shot. Let’s get thats shot.”
The four-time champ went on to explain how has experience can greatly benefit others like Hield.
“I’ve happened to play a lot of championship basketball, a lot of meaningful basketball. Buddy hasn’t had the opportunity to play a lot of meaningful basketball in this league,” Green said. Guess what? It’s our job to make sure he understands what that means.
“If people don’t like it, so be it. That’s why they don’t have four championships and I do.”
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