Joe Dumars confronted Draymond Green over Rudy Gobert Incident, cited TV deal concerns

Where is this all going? And with that league-record $400 million payroll (including luxury taxes) hanging over their heads, when might Warriors owner Joe Lacob decide that it’s time for a significant change? As one front-office executive put it in the wake of Green’s leveling of Nurkić, “I’d imagine some reassessments (are happening now).” -via The Athletic / December 14, 2023

Zach Lowe: I apologize for this comment, which came out as needlessly leading + mysterious. I tried to express that we have no insight into what might be going on privately. As is clear from episode +NBA Today, I obviously expect Draymond to come back ASAP. We are editing this out now. 1/2) -via Twitter / December 14, 2023

Zach Lowe: The whole episode discusses what comes next for Draymond and the Warriors. On NBA Today (today), I pushed back against @KendrickPerkins suggesting the league suspend Draymond for 25 games. Regardless, this aside was flippant, unclear, and unnecessary, and I apologize for it. -via Twitter / December 14, 2023

That’s what he did in Saturday’s win over Charlotte, and he did it again as the rest of the Wolves struggled for most of a 102-94 victory Wednesday over the Western Conference-worst Spurs. Gobert’s 16-point, 21-rebound night rescued the 16-4 Wolves from what was nearly their most embarrassing loss of the season to the 3-17 Spurs, but by the end of the night, the crowd was on its feet and chanting “Rudy” as Gobert checked out of the game with 25.1 seconds left. “It was great. I appreciate the love,” Gobert said. “It’s fun to watch this crowd embracing us and it’s cool to feel it, because we’ve been through a lot of adversity last year.” -via Minneapolis Star-Tribune / December 7, 2023

During a recent appearance on “Run Your Race,” Mitchell talked about the time he spent in his mother’s basement in Connecticut early on during the pandemic because people were afraid that he had the virus. Mitchell’s teammate on the Utah Jazz at the time, Rudy Gobert, was the first player to test positive for the virus before the NBA suspended the season. “I couldn’t go nowhere and get food because people thought I really had Covid,” Mitchell said. “And this was when, remember that high school kid that died? So people didn’t know if you were healthy, unhealthy, whatever the thing was. So, I was locked in my mom’s basement for about a month and a half.” -via CavaliersNation.com / December 6, 2023

Jon Krawczynski: Wolves get a ESPN game tonight. Rudy Gobert: “We go out there every night and try to accomplish something, and eventually, when you go in the playoffs and play for a championship, they have no choice but to be on national television. We gotta earn our TV games, baby.” -via Twitter @JonKrawczynski / December 6, 2023