Draymond Green is no stranger to fights, so the fact that there was a fight he was in that was clearly the worst of his career is something of an achievement in itself when you really think about it. That (dis)honor will almost certainly always be bestowed on his hit on then-Golden State Warriors teammate Jordan Poole in the 2022 preseason.

Draymond has since apologized numerous times, but the repercussions of that punch — and the subsequent leak of a video of it to TMZ — are still being felt today. Poole’s play collapsed afterward, Draymond himself blamed him for the team’s elimination from the ensuing playoffs, and Poole had to be shipped off his salary to the Wizards to sign Chris Paul on a one-year deal to dispel the bad vibes.

But Warriors fans still harboring hard feelings about a blow that effectively ended their 2022 title defense before it even began shouldn’t worry, though, because Draymond is a podcaster. And as anyone who has ever spoken spontaneously and with current authority on the air knows, it wasn’t every mistake you make in your life Strictly speaking a mistake, it was actually just something had This is done so that you can improve yourself and pass on your wisdom to others from above.

And as Draymond revealed to Penny Hardaway on his Two Cents podcast, he had to beat Jordan Poole to learn that young players won’t be as receptive to his mentorship if he beat them (emphasis mine):

“One of my biggest failures as a vet was what happened to Jordan Poole. And I had to go through that failure with Jordan Poole, who was someone who came in and picked his locker next to me because he wanted to learn from me. Was someone I would spend time with, pour myself into, and I screwed it all up. And most things in my life didn’t make me feel this miserable, and that was one of my biggest mistakes. It taught me a lot. It showed me how to be a better vet for Jonathan Kuminga and a better vet for Moses Moody, but I had to go through it to learn.

“And like I said, it sucked, but being that vet now and just wanting to go after these guys, I think the most important thing for me is knowing how to do it. With Jordan Poole, I wanted to pour myself into him, and I did. But I didn’t necessarily know how to do that. And because I didn’t necessarily know it, it kind of led us to a place that we can’t come back from. But for these younger people, I don’t know how to get to that place, but rather how to achieve the same thing I wanted to achieve with it.”

It’s unclear exactly when Draymond learned the invaluable lesson that people are less likely to listen to your advice if you beat them, but that was probably the case at some point after someone – it’s hard to guess who! – essentially leaked to Green’s then-TNT colleague Chris Haynes that Green had apologized, but also that Poole had basically asked for it.

But whenever Green hit the realization that hitting teammates made them less likely to listen to him, it’s clear the lesson paid off, because we’ve never heard of him hitting a single teammate – young or old! – since then. He also got an Amazon Prime meditation special from the whole thing, so that’s cool!

And with this newfound realization, the aspiring host has instead wisely decided to spare his teammates from that kind of aggression… saving it for things like choking Rudy Gobert, hitting Jusuf Nurkic with a Mortal Kombat finishing move hitting or injuring his ankle – irradiated to ensure he didn’t injure himself when he stepped on the chest of Domantas Sabonis, and most recently by using wrestling moves on Rui Hachimura and tried Dalton Knecht instead of a free throw rebound attempt.

You may not like it, but that’s what we call growth, ladies and gentlemen, and while the NBA may not be a safe place for Draymond’s novel wisdom, at least the Warriors’ practice facility is. So congratulations to Jonathan Kuminga and Moses Moody: you can call Draymond an “expensive backpack for 30” all you want and he won’t beat you. Probably. Perhaps.

Do you actually know what? You probably shouldn’t test this. Just to be safe.