"KD, how much of the reason for that argument we had in that game against the Clippers was in your decision to leave the Warriors?" Draymond Green said.
When Green said this in front of former teammate Kevin Durant, the melon eaters could not help but get excited. What could be more talked about in recent seasons than the Green Formula?
"Before you came, we were already champions." How much damage did it to Durant and the Golden State Warriors? The two had never really talked about it in three years.
Curiosity is human nature, and people wonder how much this bickering played in Durant's decision to leave the Warriors. In the area of how to traffic, Durant and Green have already pinched to death.
Late at night on August 18, Beijing time, the full video was finally unlocked. Durant wrote a "solution" and personally cracked the "Green formula". At the same time, Durant also answered with certainty and affirmation: If given a million chances, he would still choose to go to the Warriors.
When Green interviewed Durant, the first thing we can be sure of is that there is a direct friendship and brotherhood between the two. Despite the final stages of the Warriors' game against the Clippers in November 2018, they had a fierce verbal altercation that created a so-called "grudge" between them.
The two clarified the gossip and agreed. They both blamed head coach Steve Kerr and general manager Bob Myers for messing things up.
Durant said: "The problem is not the quarrel itself. It's about everyone, including Cole, pretending that nothing has happened. Later, Miles wanted to whitewash Taiping by punishing you, and I felt that this was the first time that our team had experienced such a big test, and we had to solve the problem well. ”
Green said he was pressured from above when the team returned to Oakland from Los Angeles to apologize to Durant. Green didn't name who he could apologize for but didn't know what to apologize for.
"When we flew back from L.A., Hazel (Green's wife) waited in the car for almost two hours because they pulled me into a room at the airport and talked for almost two hours and told me, 'You have to apologize.'" I said to them, 'I'll talk to Durant, but I don't need you to tell me what to say.' They talked to me for an hour and 45 minutes, and they talked a bunch of, and finally they realized, Okay, we can't contact him, let's talk about it tomorrow morning. ”
Then we met again the next morning and he said, "After thinking about it all night, are you ready to apologize?" I said, "It's just me and Durant who can fix this, you can't do anything, you're just screwing it all up." ”
Green was eventually suspended by the Warriors for the brawl Durant and Green overcame the impact and unhappiness of the incident in the following weeks, but the influence of the "Green Formula" was too strong. The media in almost every city will repeatedly ask about the facts of this matter on the road trips of players and coaches, with the mentality of "breaking the casserole and asking the end". Throughout the season, it's like a shadow hanging over the entire organization.
On October 31, 2019, Durant appeared at the Steven Spielberg Show. On A. Smith's show, it was also his first public interview since leaving the Warriors to join the Nets. A. Smith's question has always been straightforward: Did the spat with Green during the season have influenced his decision to join the Nets?
Durant answered very frankly and honestly. Durant said: "Absolutely. Of course. I'm not going to lie about that. ”
This isn't the first time Green has talked about how the Warriors reacted to his argument with Durant. In a joint interview with Woj in 2019, he and Miles confided in Front of Miles.
Green began questioning his position in the team and his relationship with Miles after his suspension.
"I started telling myself mentally, 'Wow, [Miles] is starting to waver towards me,'" Green said in a shared interview with Miles. "My feeling is, 'Wow, well, isn't he (Miles) the guy I've known for so many years?' Has he started targeting me? I had that thought in my head, and everybody said, 'Oh my God, the Warriors are on Kevin Durant's side.' ’”
But come to think of it, isn't that what Green recruited for Durant's ability to come to the Bay Area? After the Warriors lost the Finals in 2016, it was Green who dialed Durant's phone and asked Durant, who became a free agent, to join the Warriors.
In 2016, the NBA's salary cap suddenly rose by more than 20 million. That year gave birth to many big contracts, the famous Rich Drey Parsons 4 years 98.5 million; Ryan Anderson 4 years 80 million; Batum 5 years 120 million; Evan Turner 4 years 70 million. In this context, Durant signed a 2-year, 54 million contract with the Warriors.
In the first decade of Durant's NBA player, Durant won the award to fill two large boxes. He was a Rookie of the Year, seven-time All-Star, six-time NBA All-NBA Team, an All-Star Game MVP, a regular season MVP, and a successful NBA Finals. He couldn't go any further, and after seeing the Warriors, he couldn't contain the excitement in his heart: This is the perfect team in his heart.
"It's purely a basketball decision." Durant still does not regret his decision to leave the Thunder to join the Warriors in front of Green.
Durant said: "It's a brainless problem, give me another 1 million times and I will choose to go to the Warriors." A lot of people are unhappy that our Warriors are so powerful, and they're still unhappy. We are such a team that no one would like a perfect team. I think my addition has made the Warriors perfect. ”
Durant's cooperation with the Warriors is simply a match made in heaven, and he is perfectly integrated into the Warriors' offensive and defensive system. In 2017, although the Warriors did not have a glorious record of 73 wins in the regular season, they were deeper and unfathomable, as if they could swallow it up by any opponent. They nearly finished the playoffs with a 16-0 win.
Now, after going through the Olympics and being teammates again, Durant and Green seem to have reconciled at once.
During the conversation, Durant noted that while he watched The Last Dance, he found similarities between the Warriors' situation and the Chicago Bulls when they disintegrated.
"I remember watching The Last Dance, when I said that Pippen would not play, the whole team later criticized him in the dressing room for not doing the right thing. We need this kind of introspection, we need to put the problem on the table and say... Try to escape. I don't like this atmosphere, I'd rather people show their true feelings. Family first, communication is the key. But we didn't. Durant said.
Time passed, and the two people who were once intimate looked back to find that we had lived so well and got along so tacitly. There was a little quarrel, and the relatives did all the things to help, which led to the two gradually estranging and eventually breaking up.
You think it's basketball? It's love, like marriage.
If I had been able to speak up, I wouldn't be so sorry now.
"You played for three years with the Warriors, two consecutive championships, and if you didn't get injured it would be three."
"It's easy." Durant said.