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Draymond Green spoke for the first time on Saturday since punching Golden State Warriors teammate Jordan Poole during practice.
Green took the stand in front of reporters and was very apologetic and embarrassed about his actions, which were further scrutinized after viral video of the incident began to circulate on social media.
“I was wrong for my actions that took place on Wednesday. For that, I have apologized to my team. I have apologized to Jordan,” Green said. “There is a huge embarrassment that comes with that not only for myself for committing the action. But the embarrassment that Jordan has to deal with, the team has to deal with, the organization has to deal with and his family.”
Green said he chose to speak in front of reporters rather than addressing the incident on his podcast so he could take questions and “own” his mistake.
“I don’t hide from anything. I own my mistakes,” Green said.
Green didn’t get into specifics of what went down but made it clear that it had nothing to do with contract situations. Green did disclose that he was having a bad personal day, which left him with a short fuse.
“The day that took place, I was in a very, very bad space mentally — dealing with some things in my personal life,” Green said.
Green Plans to Stay Away From Team For Now
The Warriors said that they would handle the discipline internally and Green said that he’s taking time away from the team as he deals with the fallout.
“I will continue to stay away. I’ve been away. I will continue to do work on myself. And continue to give guys space,” Green said. “The task at hand is to rebuild trust in our locker room and pull everything back together in order to repeat and defend a championship. Although that is the least of my worries right now, that has to stay at the forefront.”
The Warriors take on the Lakers on Sunday in a preseason tilt. They have three preseason games left in all and will kick off the season on October 18 against the Lakers. Green is not sure if he’ll be on the court.
“Yeah, I expect to play. Will I play? That’s a different story, “Green said. “It’s something we will figure out. What the answer is is to feel our way through this.”
Green is the emotional leader of the Warriors and part of a core that won four championships. However, his actions went far beyond the line of what was acceptable, which his long-time teammate Stephen Curry made clear while speaking to reporters on Friday.
“There’s nothing that warranted the situation yesterday,” Curry said.” I’ll make that clear. And it’s also something that we feel like will not derail our season and what we’re trying to build. And that’s with Draymond as a part of that. The rest of it, part of the speculation becomes opinion, which turns into borderline fact of like what actually happened. I hate that that became part of the narrative. It’s not fair to J.P.”
Draymond Green Says Video Leak ‘Bulls**t’
What hasn’t helped Green’s cause is the internal video of the incident being released. TMZ got its hands on practice footage that shows the encounter in full and the punch was much worse than the initial reports indicated.
“What did I think of the fact of the video leaking — if I’m being 100% honest I thought it was bulls**t. When we are working on our sets they don’t leak,” Green said. “When I’m coaching everyone up, that doesn’t leak. I thought it was bulls**t that the video leaked.”
Green said he’s watched the video more than 15 times and had a similar reaction to what everyone else had.
“When I watch the video, I’m looking at the video and it looks awful. It looks even worse than I thought it was. It’s pathetic. Then I had to take a step back too because the video was released this way to look that way. For whoever released the video.”
The Warriors have said that they’re “aggressively investigating” how the video got out.