When Kevin Durant signed with the Golden State Warriors, the main area of concern was whether or not his presence would negatively affect the preexisting “Big Three” of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green.

While all three have seen slight dips in production, as expected, one player in particular has looked lost over the second half of February.

Draymond Green is averaging 10.0 points, 8.1 rebounds and 7.1 assists per game this year, and was even selected to the Western Conference All-Star team, but has been abysmal in recent games.

Reaching double-figures in points just twice over nine games played in February, Green has looked simply out of place over the last five contests in particular.

Just how out of place?

In that span, he has put up averages of 5.0 points, 4.8 rebounds and 4.6 assists over just 23.8 minutes per game.

In those games, he’s also gone just 6-of-29 from the field as well.

It’s worth noting that, on the season, he averages 32.5 minutes per contest.

Therefore, it’s safe to say that something’s up.

Either Green is dealing with an undisclosed injury, he’s simply not producing on the court, or something is going on behind the scenes.

Tim Kawakami of The Mercury News noted that the mood was odd in the Warriors locker room on Saturday night despite their 112-95 victory over the Brooklyn Nets on Saturday night. They set an NBA record for the quickest date to clinch a playoff berth in that win.

Perhaps it was due to the fact that Green went just 1-for-10 from the field and that coach Steve Kerr held him to just 23 minutes on the court.

“On all of those topics, standing in a quiet locker room that seemed far more tense than you would ever expect from a team that just qualified for the playoffs, Green had no comment,” Kawakami wrote.

The writer added, “He smiled, but said he didn’t want to talk about it tonight–by the way, I can never remember Green declining a chance to talk after a regular-season game, not ever.”

When asked why Green didn’t play more by reporters, Kerr responded frankly, “It just wasn’t his night.”

No other explanation was given, which is also interesting, since Kerr is usually pretty open with the media.

Hypothesizing some possible reasons why Green saw limited playing time, Kawakami offered the following possibility.

“The main guess is that there are some edgy feelings between Draymond and Kerr, possibly tied to Draymond’s listless play throughout the game and Kerr’s reaction to it. If you want to take a deeper guess, maybe this had something to do with Kerr telling the team a few nights ago that they needed to hold the line on complaining about the referees–and Kerr included himself in this–and then Draymond got a technical foul that night for something he didn’t believe deserved the call.”

If there was ever a game to break out of a slump, it was against the Nets on Saturday night.

Not only did Brooklyn enter the game with an NBA-worst 9-48 record, but Kevin Durant, who has the ball in his hands a lot when he’s on the court, missed the game with a minor injury.

Therefore, the potential for a big game was there, with added responsibility thrust Green’s way.

But, he fell short yet again.

As the lifeblood of the entire Warriors team and as the vocal leader both on and off the court, Green’s recent play has been concerning to say the least.

Scott Ostler of the San Francisco Chronicle also notes that Green’s on-court outbursts are also contributing to his struggles and are getting old quickly.

“Tick-Tick Green wants a one-way deal, in which he can abuse and demean the refs with impunity. The gods have decreed otherwise, and the sooner Tick-Tick and the Warriors come to terms with that, the better. There are two things that trigger Green explosions: bad calls and emotional games. If the Warriors can avoid both those things for the next four months, no problemo,” he wrote.

Based on Green’s decorated past of technical foul calls and his egregious kicking fouls (often times to the nether regions of his opponents), he will be on the bad side of the referees, who will hold him to a different standard than his teammates.

And that’s on him.

But, it’s up to him to control his emotions, which he has proven to be unable to do.

You can make the argument that his suspension in the NBA Finals last season changed the entire landscape of the series and led to Golden State’s eventual collapse.

Being ferocious and aggressive is the part of Green’s game that made him into an All-Star, but if he’s not able to harness his emotions, it will be to the detriment of both him and the Warriors franchise moving forward.

Of course even the best NBA players go through slumps, but with Green’s recent play, and even more through Steve Kerr’s allotment of playing time for him, it’s evident that not all is well in paradise.