It's been nearly a year since Draymond Green got into a heated verbal confrontation with Kevin Durant that led to Green's suspension, but he has admitted that he was "wrong."
"Once I was able to get over my stubbornness and accept the fact that I was wrong, I was able to move on," Green said while making an appearance on an ESPN podcast with Golden State Warriors general manager Bob Myers.
Green and Durant got into an on-court disagreement last November in a regular-season game against the Los Angeles Clippers after Green grabbed a rebound and didn't pass to Durant, who was open. The incident carried over into the locker room, and Green subsequently was suspended one game without pay for conduct "detrimental to the team," according to the Warriors' statement at the time.
Green says he started questioning his relationship not only with the Warriors but also with Myers.
"I started to tell myself in my mind, 'Wow, [Myers is] flipping on me,'" Green said. "And it just felt like, 'Wow, OK, is this not the guy I've known for all these years? Is he turning on me?' And I started to tell myself all of these things, and then everybody's like, 'Oh my God, the Warriors sided with Kevin Durant.' That was the hardest thing for me, because a lot of people don't understand me. Bob does."
Green went on to say that he had to accept the fact that he was wrong and work to rebuild Durant's trust.
"I lost (Durant's) trust. How do I get that back? Not so we can win a championship or we can win some games ... but I actually loved this guy, like that's really my brother," he said. "And so not knowing what's next in our relationship bothered me more.
"Bob and (Warriors coach Steve Kerr), they told me, like, 'You need to apologize to Kevin,' before I got suspended. And I said, 'No, I'm not apologizing because y'all telling me to apologize. I'm not gonna do that.' And I didn't. And I never apologized to him until I came to grips with myself. ... Not because of some games or the team ain't flowing right. But I can kind of see a look in my brother's face that I have not seen. He's hurt. How do I fix that? And that was what bothered me more than anything."
Myers also opened up about the fallout between Green and Durant, explaining how both players worked past the incident.
"What people don't know — which is so hard to know, which requires time and energy — is Kevin and Draymond probably will be the closest guys. They're going to be friends for their whole life like this. ... In the aftermath when they spoke, they laid it out for each other and they're like, 'OK, I got ya. Like, now I know where you're coming from,' from both sides. But that could have happened earlier and that would've prevented it."
Durant ended up leaving the Warriors in free agency to sign a four-year, $164 million deal with the Brooklyn Nets.
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