Since Draymond Green doesn’t have any players to feud with in games at the moment, he’s shifted his focus to feuding with former players off of the court.
The Golden State Warriors star forward recently ruffled the feathers of NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal by saying that he and Warriors teammate Stephen Curry would have “destroyed” O’Neal in his prime in the pick-and-roll. Green, making an appearance on the “All The Smoke” podcast with Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, also said the Warriors are the greatest team of all time.
He did couch his comments by acknowledging that O’Neal would have had his way with the Warriors in the paint, but the damage was done. O’Neal caught wind of Green’s comments, and the Hall of Fame big man issued a response on a recent episode of “The Big Podcast with Shaq.”
“I like Draymond. I like guys that voice their opinion,” O’Neal said. “I try not to get personal with guys. I like him, I like the way he plays. You have to listen to his points. He made good, key points. He said in their era. He didn’t say in my era … In my era, [the Warriors] would have been the six or seven seed. You had us, you had San Antonio, you had the Utah Jazz, you had Portland, you had White Chocolate and C-Webb [in Sacramento].
“But again, it’s his opinion. I try not to get personal with people’s opinions. But however, Mr. Draymond, like you said, I would’ve torn your ass up on that block.”
O’Neal’s latest comments echo remarks he made on SiriusXM last week:
“We wouldn’t even be playing them because they would be the six or seven seed,” O’Neal said. “… They wouldn’t have even been a factor.”
While comparing teams from different periods is always fun to do, it can often be like comparing apples to oranges, especially with two teams as different as O’Neal’s Lakers and Green’s Warriors. One team ran its offense through one of the most dominant big men of all time, while the other was almost entirely perimeter-oriented. At the end of the day, they were both great in their own era. Green’s issues with former players doesn’t end there, though, as Green also recently exchanged words with Charles Barkley, O’Neal’s co-host on TNT’s “Inside the NBA.”
The back-and-forth between Green and Barkley began in earnest earlier this year when Barkley criticized Green’s effort after being ejected from a February game against the Lakers. Green responded by claiming that he could do Barkley’s job better than him, and went on to criticize the Hall of Fame forward for failing to win a championship. Barkley then responded by comparing Green to a background member of a boy band.
“He’s the worst member of the boy band who doesn’t realize he’s standing next to Justin Timberlake,” Barkley said. “When the girls are throwing panties at his head, he’s going to get hit by some drive-by panties, but they’re really throwing panties at Justin Timberlake.”
With the season suspended, Green is clearly trying to make sure that at least one important aspect of his game — his trash-talking — stays sharp.
Courtesy: CBS Sports
