Draymond Green, Warriors Can't Be Mad at Kevin Durant

This day was bound to happen. Everyone should've seen it coming.

Especially Kevin Durant's teammates.

All those egos and expectations that led Golden State to the last two NBA titles, and three of the last four, were bound to spill over at some point. And now that they have—after Durant and Draymond Green began an argument that became a suspension that has become the NBA's latest drama—it's time to unpack how we got here and where we're going.

This all started, of course, when the Golden State Warriors lured Kevin Durant away from the Oklahoma City Thunder as a free agent in 2016. The maneuver forced the handful of teams that could realistically dream of having a chance against the superteam of all superteams to dig in and double down in a massive escalation of the NBA arms race.

They tried. But after two more Golden State titles and two Finals MVPs for Durant, it didn't work.

After a stroke of luck (the 2016 salary-cap spike) allowed the Warriors to land Durant, they benefited from another fluke this past summer when they were able to add yet another All-Star, DeMarcus Cousins, on a bargain-basement $5.3 million deal since Cousins was coming off an Achilles injury.

That didn't leave the rest of the league with many options—other than hoping that the Warriors' burgeoning dynasty would disintegrate from within.

"I think like with any team," an Eastern Conference executive told me at the time of the Cousins signing, "injuries or the 'disease of me' will come knocking."

Justin K. Aller/Getty Images

Score one for the disease of me.

After the blowup between Durant and Green at the end of an otherwise inconsequential overtime loss to the Clippers on Monday night, there is renewed hope among the NBA's mere mortals that a debilitating force as old as the game itself could be driving a wedge into the Warriors—and could ultimately spell their demise.

Ego and jealousy. Jealousy and ego.

Even as the two-time defending champs cruised to an 11-3 start, there was nonetheless a cloud hanging over the franchise. With Durant noncommittal about a Bay Area future with free agency looming again, there was already optimism building among rival teams that the Warriors' dynasty would break itself up.

As one Western Conference executive told me recently, the best hope in a league that had become one vs. 29 was that the Warriors would be so dominant en route to a third straight championship that future free agents Durant, Green and/or Klay Thompson would leave simply because they were tired of winning so much.

"If the Warriors win again, the only thing that could break them up is boredom," the executive said. "The only reason anyone would leave is they're bored and there's no competition."

But the enemy, as we now see, often comes from within. And as the powder keg that exploded in the Warriors locker room Monday night taught us, the issue of Durant's looming free agency—and how he's handling it—is a serious issue within the team.

And that's the real story behind the strife in Golden State. How could players who'd bargained for and won the enormous amount of power and leverage that NBA superstars now enjoy not understand that it's a sword that cuts both ways?

By now, everyone's seen the meltdown on the Warriors' last, futile possession of regulation on Monday night—Green swiping a defensive rebound away from Durant and dribbling imperviously up the floor while Durant clapped repeatedly for the ball. He didn't get it; Green stumbled and failed to get a shot off. At that moment, the Band-Aid over a festering wound within the Warriors locker room was ripped off.

Of all the accounts of the ensuing shouting match on the sideline between Durant and Green—and how it spilled into the postgame locker room—the most damning was this one from Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic. The gist of the report: Green repeatedly called Durant a b---h, and more to the point, he also took Durant to task over the handling of his looming free-agent decision.

According to Monte Poole of NBC Sports Bay Area, that Green called Durant out as being more focused on free agency than on the Warriors was the tipping point in the organization's decision to suspend Green for Tuesday night's game against Atlanta. The reprimand cost Green $120,000. According to a report by Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium, the public nature of the rebuke left Green wondering if it was a sign that the organization was siding with Durant over an original building block of the team as a way of currying favor with KD.

"There is already no way Durant is coming back," one Warriors player told Thompson. "The only hope is that they can say this summer, 'See, KD, we've got your back. We protected you from Draymond."

It's also worth pointing out that this wasn't the first blowup between Durant and Green. During Durant's first season in Golden State, a fan captured another heated exchange between the two during a loss to the lowly Sacramento Kings.

Will it be the last? There is a lot consider.

First, if you have Durant on your team, and you have possession with six seconds left and a chance to win in regulation, you give him the ball. That's why he's there. That's what he does. If this had been a normal basketball team functioning the way it was built to function, that's what would've happened.

The fact that Green not only refused to give the Durant the ball but also stepped in front of him to get the defensive rebound to ensure that Durant wouldn't get the ball himself…was awfully telling.

And it was proof that the NBA's new superstar-dominated power structure has sent the delicate balance of a 94-by-50-foot space occupied by five men into a state of utter chaos.

The superteam era may be great for stars, for ratings and for social media engagement. It may not be so great for how a basketball team is supposed to function.

Green, a player who directly and substantially benefited from the power and freedom that Durant exercised to leave Oklahoma City and join the Warriors, is now beside himself that Durant would have the audacity to use that power and freedom to leave his options open to go somewhere else?

How dare he!

Anyone in the Warriors locker room who is upset about this—and, according to multiple reports, the displeasure is widespread—obviously didn't understand the rules of engagement.

In today's NBA, superstars have all the power and all the leverage. (The Warriors have two players, Steph Curry and Andre Iguodala, on the National Basketball Players Association executive committee, so they should know this.) How do you cloak yourself in two straight championship banners, delivered in large part with the power and leverage that Durant exercised, only to begrudge Durant's ability to use it again?

The divisions within the Warriors are really part of a larger issue in the NBA, one that nobody wants to confront. In a sport where the players have forcefully and successfully seized so much control…and where free-agent options are an expression of this very power…how could any player begrudge another player who is exercising that power?

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

This is what the players wanted. They wanted a world in which they have all the choices, all the clout.

Here's the problem: Once the stars make their decisions and the teams congregate with the goal of winning basketball games, it's still just a game with 10 people on the floor and one basketball. For Durant to ultimately exercise his power in a way that matters, someone is going to have to pass him the ball.

And when it came time for that to happen on Monday night in Staples Center, Green wouldn't. It was like watching a social experiment play out in real time.

Apparently, nobody stopped to consider what would happen when a player of Green's accomplishments—a legacy player with his franchise—felt overshadowed and minimalized by a hired-gun superstar who took advantage of the system to create the basketball version of nirvana.

Now we know. Feelings get hurt, emotions run amok and the "disease of me" takes hold. It's been around forever, but this particular strain is a doozy.

Ken Berger covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter: @KBergNBA.