Getty Draymond Green and Chris Paul of the Golden State Warriors.
Things in the Bay may get a bit awkward when Chris Paul arrives for his new role with the Golden State Warriors. Shortly after Paul’s trade to Golden State was officially announced, an old video of Draymond Green voicing his distaste for the 38-year-old during a years old appearance on “All the Smoke” with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson surfaced online.
“I don’t like CP [Paul] at all,” Green told Barnes and Jackson back in 2020. “Like we don’t have a good relationship at all. But I respect his hustle and I respect his IQ, he’s smart as hell. CP was kind of using, like CP saw Steph [Curry] coming up. You know, once you start getting older in this league, you start to realize like, ‘Okay, this guy is coming, eventually he may catch me because I’m going to start declining at some point.’ So I would kinda see CP starting to keep Steph at bay, but f—ing giving him a stiff arm at the same time. You know, Steph is Steph. Like we all love Steph but.. he ain’t got the street part to ’em.. me coming from where I come from where I grew up I’m watching like ‘Yo, he kinda rock with you, Steph. But he kinda don’t. He kinda keeping you at bay.’ I took it upon myself to try and create division there.”
Draymond Green in 2020:
“I don’t like CP at all, we don’t have a good relationship at all. But I respect his hustle and I respect his IQ — he’s smart as hell.”
Of course, it makes sense for Green not to like Paul as a competitor. “The Point God” was a member of both the Los Angeles Clippers and Houston Rockets, two teams that battled the Warriors during their rise to the top in the mid-to-late 2010’s.
Chris Paul says He’s Excited to Join Warriors After Trade
Despite the history between the two sides, Paul has voiced nothing but excitement about heading to The Bay. In a recent interview with Lindsay Czarniack, he shouted out his new teammates as well as head coach Steve Kerr.
“I’m excited, I’m grateful like I said,” Paul said of his reaction to the trade. “To get an opportunity to play with that core group of players: Steph, Klay [Thompson], Draymond, [Kevon] Looney, Wiggs [Andrew Wiggins], all of them, play for Steve … So, I definitely want to get on the phone and talk to those guys and whatnot and see what’s what.”
NBA star Chris Paul told me it was a “full circle” moment finding out he was traded to the Golden State Warriors. We sat down for a previously scheduled podcast conversation shortly after the news broke. Appreciate his honesty still processing the news @CP3 #chrispaul #nba
Steve Kerr Calls Warriors’ Trade for Chris Paul a ‘Positive Shift’
Kerr, like Paul, seems intrigued by the new structure of his roster. He discussed the deal with The Athletic’s Tim Kawakami, explaining that it was tough to see Jordan Poole have to go, but also that he felt the change was needed.
“We’re going to be a lot different. The last thing I’m going to do is say anything about a team that just won a championship a year ago and then fought through a difficult season. Made a helluva run at the end of this year. I’ve loved this group that we’ve had the last couple years,” Kerr told Kawakami. “But the biggest point is that we sensed we needed a shift. Didn’t mean we needed an overhaul, but we needed a shift of some sort. I think everybody in the organization sensed that. And it feels like we’ve made a pretty significant shift without giving up our identity and our sense of who we are as a team. I think, all in all, it’s a very positive shift.”