- [Clara] Draymond Green and Kevin Durant
were teammates on a super team so super,
it threatened to ruin the league.
They won lots of accolades
and a couple of championships together.
But with one teammate being more than a little insecure
and one teammate being more than a little outspoken,
there were some bumps in the road too.
One of which may have just influenced
the future of the franchise.
(suspenseful music)
Draymond Green is an emotional,
passionate, assertive player.
As a rookie in 2013, he didn't let the fact
that he was a second round pick
keep him from talking a little trash to Kevin Durant,
who was coming off of finals appearance.
Not to say that was a point of beef between these two.
It didn't bother KD, it just surprised him.
I bring it up simply to say,
Draymond isn't afraid to get in anyone's face.
Green's loud passion bolstered him
as he grew into a three-time champion all star
who served as the beating heart,
the emotional leader of the dynastic Warriors.
Not bad.
Now, sometimes his emotions got the better of him,
like in 2016,
when he screamed at coach Steve Kerr so loudly,
reporters outside the locker room could hear.
Or later in 2016,
when he got suspended for game five of the finals,
because he had accumulated too many flagrant fouls.
Two of which were groin shots,
I feel like that's important to include because it's funny
and because it illustrates
that sometimes Draymond is too much.
Alongside Draymond in the front court, we have Kevin Durant.
One of the best, if not the best
basketball player on the planet.
But for all his talent,
he's still shown some insecurity at points in his career.
You know what they say, it's not easy at the top.
And while I've always thought they've said that
to keep me down and docile,
Kevin Durant proves them correct.
After newly defeating the Warriors with OKC
in the 2016 Western Conference Finals,
Durant joined the champion Warriors in the off season,
creating an imbalance in the league.
Instead of sticking with the underdog
that was still a finals contender,
he joined the team that held the dog's head underwater.
KD was soundly criticized for the decision,
it was considered a cop-out, tantamount to cheating.
Fans burned his jersey and they likened him to a cupcake,
both being soft and delicate.
And KD got insecure.
He couldn't really handle the criticism.
I'm not trying to be an armchair psychologist,
I'm just trying to put words to what happened next.
Kevin Durant used a burner account
to pretend to be a random person defending Kevin Durant.
Fair to say this guy takes criticism pretty hard.
So, starting in the 2017 season,
we've got a very talented but insecure guy
and a very talented,
but sometimes too passionate guy as teammates.
How'd it go?
Well, in January of their first season together,
Green yelled at Durant,
when he missed a contested 3 at the end of a close game.
And Durant accepted the critique.
Maybe he felt bad about missing the 3,
maybe he felt like a new guy
who should listen to his new team's emotional leader.
Either way,
the whole thing ended with a double high five.
So, no big deal.
About a month later, KD had a bad game,
he shot two for 10 and Draymond again
yelled at the superstar.
This time, KD stood up for himself
and leaned over for himself too.
This certainly looked, smelled and tasted like beef.
You've got teammates getting between them and everything,
but on Snapchat, Draymond said it wasn't a story.
He's saying blah-blah-blah to the Bleacher Report article,
not Postmates.
I bet his Postmates order was incredible.
He's rich and he needs lots of calories for sports.
I'm positive that there was nothing blow about that order.
The Warriors weren't harmed by the star's sped.
They finished the 2017 season,
67 and 15 lost just one game in the playoffs
and took home another championship.
Now here's something interesting.
The following season,
there was some evidence that KD saw Draymond's criticisms
as constructive, rather than something to get upset about.
In May, they lost game three
of the Western Conference semis.
KD didn't play great.
In the middle of the night Draymond sent Durant
a quote "long-ass text" in which he did not hold back,
telling KD he needed to step it up.
KD responded with a simple, "I got you".
And while a three word reply to a long text message
is usually the sign of a brush off, it wasn't.
It was genuine.
Durant went on to score 38 points in the game for a win.
Who could have thought the guy with burner accounts
could respond to criticism so well.
Oh, and by the way, the Warriors went on to repeat in 2018,
they looked like they were gonna run the league
for a long time.
Although one thing, that summer KD signed a contract
that gave him slightly less money
in exchange for the option
to leave the very next off season.
And there was a lot of talk he was gonna take that option.
On a different team,
he could be the primary playmaker
instead of just a very valuable piece of the offense.
And not to be overlooked,
winning a championship with a non-super team
might silence all the hate he got
for joining up with the Warriors.
From the very start of the 2019 season,
there was tons of KD free agency buzz.
The press loved asking him about it
and teams loved making overtures to him.
Some felt KD egged on the stories,
or at least didn't do anything to shut them down,
which was kind of a selfish move.
The buzz surrounded not just him, but his entire team.
The Warriors were in a constant state of unease
needing to core him while thinking about what to do
if he didn't return.
Klay Thompson and Draymond Green
were gonna be free agents shortly after Durant.
And now they had to field questions
about what they'd do if KD left.
But Golden State said the free agency frenzy
wasn't a distraction
as they vied for a potential three-peat.
And by mid-November they were 11 and 2.
So yeah, they're fairly focused,
but resentment was bruin.
On November 12th,
KD and Draymond got in another on-court shouting match,
but this one was a little different.
The earlier incidents all started
with Draymond criticizing KD.
This one started with KD criticizing Draymond,
and that was too much for Draymond Green.
Let's go to the video tape.
The Warriors were tied with the Clippers
in the final seconds.
Draymond grabbed a rebound
that KD certainly thought he was about to catch.
Draymond then either ignored or didn't see KD clapping madly
for the ball and took it up court himself,
where he proceeded to fall down as time expired.
Then the yelling happened.
KD told Draymond to pass him the fucking ball,
Draymond took offense of being told what to do like a scrub.
And he reminded KD he wasn't a scrub.
In fact, he won a championship
before KD got to Golden State, remember?
As if Durant could ever forget.
Draymond also called Durant a bitch several times
and brought up one more subject,
Durant's free agency.
This wasn't exactly constructive criticism.
Unlike their arguments in the past,
this one carried into the locker room after the game.
Green laid into Durant,
accusing him of perpetuating the free agency media circus.
Ladies and gentlemen, this time we've got beef.
That night, GM Bob Myers and Steve Kerr
met with Green and told him to apologize.
Draymond doesn't like being told what to do,
as we've just seen, and he did not agree to apologize.
So Kerr and Myers suspended him without pay for one game.
This was a surprisingly harsh punishment.
In 2016, when Draymond screamed at Kerr,
he was just privately fined a couple thousand dollars
and that was it.
But something as public as a suspension,
that was gonna make waves.
The media, fans, and Draymond himself
felt the team just sided with Durant.
The next night Durant was asked
if he was surprised by the suspension
and didn't give the media an inch.
- I was just focused on the game.
I don't really care either way.
I was just focused on trying to come out here
and finish this back to back off.
- [Clara] Though he did admit
he and Draymond hadn't made up yet.
- [Interviewer] Kevin, have you and Draymond
been able to hash anything out?
- No.
- In fact, Draymond later said Durant
would have blocked his number.
This beef had implications on the future of the franchise.
Was the fight so severe KD would leave?
Were the Warriors trying to recruit Durant
by taking his side?
Was this an effort to set up Draymond
as the scapegoat when Durant inevitably left in the summer?
Had the Warriors just alienated Green,
who would become a free agent himself in 2020?
Were the Warriors even the Warriors anymore?
This was a team that was built on unselfish played,
their motto was strengthened numbers.
And now an argument about who got the last shot
was unraveling them?
Three days later, Green and KD finally talked,
seem the onus of making up was on Draymond.
He accepted responsibility for going too far.
Said he supported Durant,
no matter his free agency decision,
and insisted the team would be just fine,
which they absolutely were.
Golden State finished 57 and 25
and rolled through the playoffs to the finals.
They didn't win at all,
but KD had a devastating injury in game five.
A couple of weeks after losing the finals,
KD signed with the Brooklyn Nets.
There were speculation he left Golden State
because he was jealous of homegrown hero, Steph Curry,
or because he wanted to prove
he could get a ring without a super team,
but Durant claimed a couple of different reasons
for leaving.
One, he never felt totally included with the Warriors.
He wasn't jealous, but he felt like an outsider.
And a second reason, that'd be the fight with Green.
Draymond didn't buy that at all.
He was sure if KD wanted to leave because of him,
the Warriors would have said,
"Goodbye, Draymond" real quick.
After all, they'd taken Durant's side once before.
But in his comments,
Draymond was careful not to fuel more beef.
In the same breath, he essentially called KD a liar.
He said he loved him.
But a year later Draymond was a guest on Durant's podcast,
but it wasn't some big showdown.
They were affable, relaxed,
and made us wait nearly an hour into the podcast
before even addressing the fight.
Host Eddie Gonzalez made it very clear
it was no longer a sore subject.
- [Eddie] Y'all have reconciled.
Y'all have buried the hatchet, y'all have had conversations.
- [Clara] Green's position was,
this fight could have blown over like the others,
but management and the media
made it into a bigger deal than it was.
It was their fault.
He's kind of ignoring
that the argument spilled into the locker room
and got pretty personal, but fine, fine, fine.
KD agreed management and the media blew it up,
but he also got on record that Draymond crossed a line
during the argument,
though he wants to try to harp on the issue.
- [Kevin] He went too far, one of his little joyous.
- [Clara] A couple of weeks later,
KD went on Draymond's show and said definitively,
he did not leave
because of what Draymond said during the fight,
but because of management's reaction.
- It wasn't an argument.
It was the way that everybody,
Steve Kerr act like it didn't happen.
Bob Myers tried to just discipline you
and think that that would put the mask over everything.
- [Clara] Now that's a little different
from what he originally said when he left the Warriors,
but if that's the line he's taken now,
if they're gonna go on each other's shows,
and be pals and laugh, then that's the reality we live in.
Just don't let them fool you.
There was real beef here,
even if it was just one argument over one final shot,
even if outside forces heightened it.
And even if they've since put it behind them.
(logo chimes)
What's up everybody, thank you for watching.
And may I suggest watching more stuff?
We've got more KD Warriors, we've got more beef.
We've got everything you need.
Don't forget to subscribe.
I love you, and I'll see you real soon.
For Secret Base, I'm Clara Morris,
goodnight and good game.