This isn’t Steve Kerr’s first rodeo.
As Draymond Green’s coach for 10 years, Kerr has been there through all the Warriors forward’s ups and downs over the last decade, including his extracurriculars and on-court antics. After hearing multiple apologies and excuses in the past, Kerr shared why this time — Green’s latest 12-game suspension for striking Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkić in the face last month — is different.
“I think Draymond knows his career is on the line. It really is,” Kerr said Tuesday on 95.7 The Game’s “Willard and Dibs.” “Based on what’s happened over the last year, based on the recent suspension, based on everything that’s gone on — I think he recognizes that it is different this time. This wasn’t a suspension for getting too many technicals. This wasn’t a suspension for one Flagrant foul. This was different.
“This really put him on notice. He’s put himself on notice. That’s what makes this different. And that’s why his response has to be what it’s got to be.”
The NBA indefinitely suspended Green on Dec. 13, one day after the incident with Nurkić. The decision to not tie a number to the suspension stemmed from the league’s hope that Green would take the time necessary to focus on himself and get his mind right before returning to the court.
Green, speaking publicly for the first time since his absence on “The Draymond Green Show,” revealed that he and Kerr had a very emotional discussion when his coach paid him a visit, stating the two cried together in his backyard. Kerr didn’t want to disclose what the two talked about, but he shared more details about their in-depth talk.
“I went to his house in [Los Angeles] the day he was suspended,” Kerr said. “We were playing the Clippers that night. I went over and we had a very heartfelt, emotional two-hour conversation in his backyard. I won’t really share what we discussed, but we have a very close relationship after 10 years of doing this together. We are extremely close.
“The whole thing at that point was he’s got to get right. He has to get his mind right, his emotions right, and that’s the most important thing. And we agreed that he had to handle himself and he had to handle everything on his own, at his own pace, whatever that meant. That’s why, along with the league, it was an unspecified amount of time on the suspension.”
While Kerr’s “you do you and I’ll do me”-type comments initially were taken the wrong way by the NBA world, the coach clarified he meant no ill intent and that actually was what both sides had agreed upon.
“The agreement was I’ll give you your space and you do what you have to do and we’ll stay in touch,” Kerr said. “When you’re ready to come back, you come back. And that’s how it was. And we didn’t text every day but we texted a spoke a couple times during the suspension. I was busy trying to win games, he was busy handling his own stuff.
“And when I said we were giving him space and he was giving us ours, there was nothing cryptic about it at all. It was actually just genuine.”
Green was reinstated by the NBA on Saturday and he returned to Warriors practice Tuesday before speaking to the media for the first time since his suspension. He likely will be back on the court with the team in the next week or two.
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