The Golden State Warriors may not be in the NBA playoffs this year, but that doesn’t mean Draymond Green doesn’t have a rooting interest.
Green, whose Warriors lost to the Sacramento Kings in the first round of the NBA’s Play-In Tournament in the middle of April, was eagerly watching from home as his peers competed in the first round of the postseason. While Green has a lot of friends he’s likely rooting on, he has also some, for lack of a better term, enemies.
One of those “non-friends” is Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkić, who had a year-long battle with Green this season.
It all began back in late December when Green was ejected and then suspended indefinitely for smacking Nurkić in the face during a Warriors vs. Suns matchup.
Here’s what Nurkić had to say to reporters after the game: “What’s going on with him? I don’t know. Personally, I feel like that brother needs help. I’m glad he didn’t try to choke me. At the same time, it ain’t nothing to do with basketball.”
Green ended up being suspended for 12 games and was back on the court again for the teams’ next matchup in February. Green and Nurkić had another altercation, and this time around, Nurkić was done giving Green any sympathy.
“It’s sad,” Nurkić said to reporters after the game. “He didn’t learn anything. It’s just a matter of time. He’s going to knock somebody else again. I take everything back, what I said. He doesn’t deserve a chance.”
Green’s response?
“What in that game that happened with me would make you say something like that, other than getting embarrassed because you’re just not good enough?… I don’t know. I thought it was really whack to go questioning my character because I destroyed you on the basketball court.”
While the two teams didn’t meet again during the season, there was plenty of room for more drama.
Following the Warriors’ loss to the Kings and elimination from the postseason, Nurkić was especially active on social media. He made two posts on his X account, one with laughing emojis, and another with a gif that read, “That’s All Folks!”
Flash forward two weeks, and the Suns are now also out of the playoffs following a sweep at the hands of the Minnesota Timberwolves. It didn’t take long for Green to react on his “The Draymond Green Show.”
“Unfortunately, that is all folks,” Green said following the end of the Suns’ season. “That is all.”
Then he went in on Nurkić:
“The big softie wanted to tweet after we lost, wanted to post pictures. That tweet spoiled so fast like that is spoiled milk,” Green said. “And yeah, that is all folks.”
He continued: “You got to be really careful when you’re not that successful and you try to take jabs at people. Because when you really don’t have control of your own success, when you don’t play a large enough role in your team’s success when you can’t really affect the outcome of the game, like you can go have 20 rebounds and lose a game, when you really don’t affect the outcome of the game, it’s really tough to take jabs at people. Because you got to jab and then you can’t affect what your end result is.
“So yeah, big softie bowed out,” Green added.
Green referred to Nurkić as “big softie” numerous times throughout the rant and alluded to the fact that he couldn’t really make a big impact on their success.
Nurkić had a relatively quiet series, averaging 7.8 points and 8.3 rebounds per game while shooting 50 percent from the field. His Suns were manhandled by the No. 3 seeded Timberwolves, who won the first three games by double figures before finishing the Suns off in four in Phoenix with a six-point win.
Nurkić was far from the problem for the Suns, but their early exit was definitely music to the ears of Green.
The Warriors may not have made the playoffs this year, but at the end of the day, they got the same amount of postseason wins as the Suns this season.
Uncommon Knowledge
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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