Here’s how news of the Draymond Green left ankle injury came out yesterday [pic above from dribble2much on Instagram]:
• Charlie aka “Dpoymond” (on Instagram) tweets out “Dray Ankle Injury; Out 4-6 Weeks 😔”, then deletes the tweet.
• Someone else screenshots the deleted tweet (see below) and replies asking if Draymond told him to delete it, to which Charlie responds with a GIF meme entitled, “If I speak I am in big trouble.” Links [Substack still doesn’t allow me to edit links in a mobile browser like it used to]: https://x.com/_klaynation_/status/1708128174167691708?s=46 and https://x.com/jelonmusks/status/1708139621341614396?s=46
• Jason Dumas of KRON-TV tweets out that a source tells him of Green’s injury and is likely out “3-6 weeks”: https://x.com/jdumasreports/status/1708209931567186365?s=46
• Anthony Slater of TheAthletic adds that the injury was sustained in a pickup game: https://x.com/theathleticnba/status/1708232530208358788?s=46
• Marc Spears of ESPN Andscape adds that Draymond told him he stepped on Jonathan Kuminga’s foot: https://x.com/marcjspears/status/1708241886102835208?s=46
• Spears also reports that Draymond told him the injury could have been worse and he “dodged a bullet”: https://x.com/marcjspears/status/1708235428124622948?s=46
• Dalton Johnson of NBC Sports Bay Area adds that Green will still participate in Media Day (which I interpret to mean he’ll still take the requisite photographs, do the -annual Draymond yell for the Jumbotron intros and clips, and take the podium for reporters): https://x.com/daltonj_johnson/status/1708240020577100113?s=46
• Dr. Nirav Pandya of UCSF says Green has a Grade 2 out of 3 ankle sprain: https://x.com/drniravpandya/status/1708232364877578480?s=46
…and finally, the prognosis, as inquired by DubNationFR to Charlie, as I later found out: https://x.com/dubnationfr/status/1708331305329365072?s=46
• Will probably miss the first week of the regular season
• Could return the 2nd week
• Will come off the bench upon his return with a minutes restriction
• Walks with crutches
• Two partially torn ligaments
• Avoided serious injury
Who is Charlie?
In case you didn’t know, Charlie runs the Dpoymond account on Instagram. It is obviously super-pro-Draymond, to the point where Green actually noticed and, over the years, ended up inviting him to the 2022 championship parade, among other things. Charlie also runs PlayoffDraymond on Twitter but someone reported him and so he now has PlayoffDray, from which he scooped this Draymond ankle news. Charlie lives in Australia and we had him on a recent livestream…
…also I am pleased to announce that we’ll have Charlie on the Media Day Evening Recap livestream tomorrow, Monday, October 2, 2023.
I’m sure there are some details about Charlie that I missed above, so join us tomorrow live and ask away!
The problem with Twitter
Alright, so I want to digress a bit and talk about “sources” and “scoops”. I’m not sure if Charlie deleted his breaking news tweet on purpose or not, but when I saw it, I wanted to get confirmation. I thought about calling Mary Babers-Green, Dray’s mom of course, whom I had some long talks with after the punch of Jordan Poole last year, but I just don’t like the idea of chasing. Plus, there was the likelihood that Babers didn’t know and I’d be, you know, bugging her. She’s pretty busy saving lives back in Saginaw, by the way. Maybe we’ll have her on someday to explain that.
Anyways, sure enough, Dumas soon tweeted official confirmation from his source — which I delved into in the previous article…
…for paid subscribers — and that was all that was needed to start the cascade of journalists confirming with Warriors PR. So when you hear a rumor, you’re likely to get the full scoop sooner or later anyways, as we got from Spears (and then Charlie again).
Of course, that’s a traditional reporter’s job and Dumas and Spears and Slater and Dalton do it very well, and so do the others who are basically required to confirm with their own sources, and then tweet that out as well. I’m not trying to compete with that, I don’t necessarily get paid for that (unless I steered this website to do that and went all-in and started to bug people, not that they’d even care to respond to me), and so for this Substack we aren’t going to chase breaking news or scoops.
We’re gonna stick to a calm pace, a positive environment, curiosity instead of judgment the Ted Lasso way, and having plenty of alternative behind-the-scenes news that makes you feel like part of the family, the 18th man on the bench.
Now, as in the previous article, something will drop in my lap such as a verified Gui Santos insider DM’ing me he’d get the last two-way, but what do you do with that? I don’t have the time to call around and confirm it and Santos isn’t that popular so as to drive new subscriptions. I ended up tweeting it, then when the news broke that Gui actually didn’t get the spot as it went to Jerome Robinson, my contact told me why, I explained on Twitter, and at least two hate tweets ensued. I’ll just stop there, but I’m about positivity so that’s the last time I share anything on X except for links to here and YouTube.
From this point forward, if there’s information to share, it will be included in a daily digest, or near-daily. This is because Substack is really a newsletter, rather than a website. It’s an email service. If this were a website a la Yahoo or ClutchPoints, then there would be a need for timing and urgency.
The digests will begin tomorrow morning (this is already sort of one), and below is an example. If there’s some insider-y stuff I think paid subscribers deserve to know, I’ll add a paywall and put that information behind it, but more often than not, all of these digests will be free.
Note: These digests will probably be super-long! Also, paid subscribers will get access to our Discord server for more up-to-the-minute news as it comes in. There’s more urgency there, but not too much.
Ex-Warrior updates
As training camp is approaching, various NBA players are rounding out their final opportunities. Here’s how some ex-Warriors are doing:
Damion Lee meniscus injury: https://www.hoopsrumors.com/2023/10/damion-lee-out-indefinitely-with-meniscus-injury.html
…injured his right meniscus during a workout at Phoenix’s practice facility and will be sidelined indefinitely, the team announced in a press statement. Further details of the exact nature of the injury were not revealed
Mychal Mulder is now on the Grizzlies. Probably a training camp invite as they have 19 guys on contract, 17 after waiving Josh Christopher and Isaiah Todd https://x.com/grizzliespr/status/1708253160920285643?s=46
Juan Toscano-Anderson rejoins Capitanes in Mexico:
…and baby JTA II is born…
👍👍💛💙