On the court, Warriors star Draymond Green has made his ability to rub folks the wrong way part of his identity. He gets under the skin of opponents thanks to his oft-flapping gums and his very physical style of play. Heck, let’s be honest—Green very often gets under the skin of teammates (Jordan Poole and Kevin Durant, for example) and coaches (all of them) alike.
But off the court, the podcast that Green has been running, which has had a couple of different iterations since he started it three years ago, has similarly rubbed some the wrong way. Lately, it has been those folks in New York who took exception to Green’s warnings on the way the Knicks have built their team.
Prominent and respected New York Post media critic Phil Mushnick certainly railed against Green’s panning of the Knicks’ move to add Mikal Bridges in a trade with the Nets.
“Consider that Draymond Green, among the most persistently mendacious, team-undermining reasons to eliminate the NBA as a civilized sport, now hosts a podcast from which he dispenses advice on how to play winning team basketball. A recent Green lecture scolded the Knicks for acquiring Mikal Bridges from the Nets as a feckless addition.
“Late this past season, Professor Green was ejected from his 21st NBA game, a must-win for his Warriors, just four minutes in. But what he thinks and says, as opposed to what he does, attracts serious media attention and contemplation.”
Draymond Green Knocked Knicks Addition
It’s a fair point to suggest that Green’s antics on the floor, which resulted in him being suspended this year for a 12-game stretch as he sought mental health counseling (he sat out four additional Warriors games to “ramp up” from his NBA-enforced mindfulness retreat), make him an odd source of advice on team-building.
Here’s what Green had said about the Knicks, and what he says will be a futile attempt to unseat the Celtics:
“I just don’t think that group is good enough to beat Boston. Ultimately you’re building a team that you hope can beat Boston. And I don’t think that team is going to beat Boston,” Green said on his podcast, “The Draymond Green Show.” “So you got a year or two like the Houston Rockets (the Warriors’ top rival in 2017 and 2018). … You got two years and it’s oops, that didn’t work. … That’s what I think is going to happen. That’s how I see it playing out. If it don’t work, that’s exactly how it will play out.
“So you heard it here first.”
Warriors Championship Cinched Podcast Dominance
But the potshots that Mushnick took at Green appear to be more about the source than the substance. Because in the end, adding Bridges’ two-way talent might help the Knicks better compete with the Celtics, but are highly unlikely to get the Knicks past the Celtics. Boston is still a stacked group that, as long as it can stay healthy, figures to be the best in the East next year and for the foreseeable future.
As for Green, don’t expect him to take much notice of outside criticism—he has been outspoken as a podcaster and analyst, and that won’t stop.
Remember, in the 2022 NBA Finals, Green was podcasting almost real time from the Warriors’ championship push. Golden State did not attempt to rein him in, even if he made some uncomfortable. On the day after the Warriors won the championship in Game 6, “The Draymond Green Show” clocked in as the 11th-most popular podcast on Apple Podcasts.
At the time, Bloomberg tabbed the rise of Green’s podcast, the, “biggest media story of the NBA Finals.”
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Warriors’ ‘Mendacious’ Draymond Green Ripped Over Knicks Criticism