When ESPN dropped a fascinating, intricately reported story on Draymond Green and the tentative line he walks between pushing the Warriors to greatness and driving them off a cliff, there was a lot to take exception to.

But the one thing that seemed to tip them over the edge the most was a line that came from inside the organization, about how the Warriors played in Game 5 of the Finals when Green was suspended. Here's the quote:

By universal decree, the 2016-17 Warriors are a juggernaut. And if this juggernaut has a foundation, Green is it. Steph Curry is the reigning MVP; new acquisition Kevin Durant is one of the NBA's greatest scorers. But multiple Warriors staffers share the opinion that Green is their most important player. Nobody replicates his set of contributions. As one team official puts it: "The guys might be frustrated by his antics, but they had an opportunity to prove themselves without him in Game 5 and they played like a bunch of [cowards]."

Source: TrueHoop Presents: Golden State's Draymond Green problem.

The phrasing is interesting here. The reporter, Ethan Sherwood Strauss, took great care in the construction of this story, showcasing the concerns but always tempering them with the good things Green brings to the table and how these issues may not matter. So you trust him to have accurately nailed what he paraphrased with the brackets there, which probably was actually an expletive.

Here's Klay Thompson's response on Friday:

That's a legitimately angry Thompson, a guy who doesn't really get riled up by much. But if Thompson is usually a cool customer, Steve Kerr is Mr. Freeze, and even he was mad enough to go off about it ... and even question modern media over it. From CSN Bay Area:

"I don't know who said that. I'd guarantee it wasn't any of our coaching staff. I would be shocked if it was anybody in basketball management. We don't do that. Nobody ever said that to me, not even to the press. But nobody ever said that to me, like, 'Those guys played like cowards.' So I have no idea where that came from."

"It's upsetting because you want to keep things in house," he said. "If somebody wants to say something, then they should put their name on it. If you don't feel like you can put your name on it, you shouldn't say it."Kerr paused ever so briefly before noting how media operates in the second decade of the new millennium.

"But on the other hand I also know how it works these days," he said. "What is 'an unnamed source?' Who are 'sources with knowledge of the team's thinking?' It's gotten harder and harder to control stuff, to keep things in house these days because what used to be a credible source is now ... the standards are a little bit lower. ... I just know that sources with knowledge of the team's thinking is an extremely vague phrase and who knows who that might be?"

Source: Kerr upset by 'cowards' reference: Put name on it, or don't say it | CSN Bay Area.

First off, this comment didn't just come from a low-ranking team official. It's unlikely that a comment like that from a low-ranking official would have even made the cut for that story. Even if it was, that's still a person with the team making that claim.

Draymond Green remains controversial. USATSI

Let's talk bigger picture, though.

You've got two prominent members of the team whose big issue is nothing said or intimated about Green, but about that comment about Game 5. And it's understandable, to suggest they played without heart in what was a difficult moment that lead to an embarrassing collapse after being up 3-1 is hurtful. But it also shows that things do get under the Warriors' skin.

Let me put it this way. If the Spurs were faced with this kind of situation, they would respond with a flat, banal "I don't care," and that would be it. The Warriors are genuinely affected by this stuff. They were affected by what happened with LeBron James in the Finals, as Klay Thompson said that James was "in his feelings" and Mo Speights tweeted unflattering things about him. They took every notion of disrespect personally last season; that's part of what helped them win 73 games.

Which is why Steph Curry's response to all of this was interesting:

Now, Curry is admirably defensive of Green, here, saying "You take shots at Draymond, you take shots at all of us," but Curry says, "Our goal is to not let anything in that locker room that doesn't come from us, and we do a pretty good job of that."

Hold up.

Headline: "Warriors have a group text to share negative stories."

They were mad at something Austin Rivers said.

They felt disrespected when the Bucks beat them and celebrated, which should really be a line in that Alanis Morrisette song even though it's not actually ironic which is kind of the point.

This team keeps absolutely nothing out of their locker room. They do not steel themselves against outside influence. Part of the larger point of Strauss' article was about how Green's distractions (the James groin incident, this summer's issues with social media and a bar fight, various altercations) tend to grate on teammates over time. Now, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's this big problem the Warriors can't overcome; Strauss concluded the opposite, it's an issue but not something huge that derails them.

But we can take a few things away from this: The Warriors like to pretend they are more bulletproof than they are, and that specific comment got under their skin as part of a larger pattern.