Last season, the Golden State Warriors were dealing with more than inconsistent performances. The tension spilled onto the sideline when Draymond Green and Steve Kerr got into a heated argument during a timeout after Green committed a turnover against the Orlando Magic and continued to engage with an official. Moses Moody and assistant coach Jerry Stackhouse tried to calm him, but he stormed to the locker room. He later returned to the bench but never checked back into the game.

The incident came just two days after Green had been ejected against the Phoenix Suns, making it his second straight game that ended prematurely. Golden State still won 120-97 and improved to 15-15, but the Kerr-Green confrontation became another reminder of how quickly things can boil over between the two.

Crucially, Kerr already expects that relationship to be tested again. But bizarrely, he didn’t expect to reveal this to the fanbase so soon…

“Since he shared what I shared with him in private. I feel it’s only right that I share what he shared with me in private,” Kerr said on the Tom Tolbert Show. “At the end of the year we had our exit meeting, and he said, ‘Hey, I want to thank you for your patience, because you’ve been really patient with me.’ And I think it’s been well worth it. I mean, he’s a guy I will say forever. We don’t have a single championship without him. The guy’s that impactful on winning.

“This year I need the same patience from him. Because this is going to be an interesting year, a transition year of sorts. And we’re going to do some things differently, and he and Steph obviously have this great rapport”

Weeks after Green shared part of their private conversation, the coach wanted Green to hear his side publicly as well. According to the Warriors’ floor general, Kerr had candidly told him it had become “incredibly hard” to support him publicly. In return, however, Green just said, “Don’t.”

“When I said it to him, I could see the weight lifted off his shoulders. Like, what? Yeah. Don’t,” Green recalled.

But that was hardly their only difficult conversation. Green later revealed that he once told Kerr, “I don’t think you’ve ever liked me,” prompting an emotional response from his longtime coach. Still, Kerr has never questioned Green’s importance to Golden State.

With the Warriors entering what he called a transition year, the coach warned that Green will have to adjust. “We’re not going to take away from that, but he’s going to have to adapt a little bit, and it’s probably going to be a little frustrating at times, so I’m going to need his patience, too,” Kerr said.

He emphasized that the Dubs wouldn’t have won any of their four championships without him. Green’s defense, playmaking and chemistry with Curry have made him central to the dynasty, even as managing him has occasionally tested Kerr.

There have been basketball disagreements too. Green previously claimed that Kerr limited his offensive growth, particularly after Kevin Durant arrived in 2016, and said Golden State never ran a play exclusively for him. That history makes Kerr’s latest request for patience even more significant.

Kerr has supported Green through arguably the worst phase of his career, when he kept getting ejected. In 2023, after he was tossed for striking Jusuf Nurkic in the face, Kerr publicly stepped in to say that this problem was bigger than basketball and that, for him, it was about “helping” the person, not the player.

“It’s an opportunity for Draymond to step away and to make a change in his approach, in his life, and that’s not an easy thing to do,” Kerr said. “It’s not just about an outburst on the court. This is about his life. Look at the past year and what’s happened, it’s clear he needs the opportunity to change. And that’s what an indefinite suspension gives him the opportunity for.”

Even the courtside image from the end of last season, when the Warriors crashed out of the play-in game, of Kerr, Curry and Green in a huddle will be remembered for a long time. The coach and floor general were both out of contract, and Kerr was heard telling his two pillars: “I don’t know what’s gonna happen next, but I love you guys to death.”

Months later, both Kerr and Green signed new short-term deals and will somehow try to run it back again. But the point here is that Kerr knows all jobs have an “expiration date,” and he was prepared to let go with nothing but gratitude.

Nobody knows how this aging Warriors team, with an injury-prone Curry and an absent Jimmy Butler, will survive even half of next season, let alone make a deep playoff run. But if everything were so predictable, it wouldn’t be fun, would it?