Draymond Green has been under scrutiny for publicly expressing his hatred against Rudy Gobert, particularly during the ongoing Western Conference Finals. The majority of the NBA community has criticized the acting TNT analyst already. Richard Jefferson also took to his podcast and stood up for Gobert, defending him from Green’s unnecessary remarks.
Advertisement
During the latest episode of Road Trippin’, the panel–Richard Jefferson, Kendrick Perkins, and Allie Clifton–had a detailed conversation about Luka Doncic’s game-winning shot over Rudy Gobert. At this same moment, Jefferson also highlighted the comments that Draymond Green made toward the Minnesota Timberwolves star.
Standing up for the 2024 Defensive Player of the Year, RJ called Green out by recalling an incident from the 2016 NBA Finals. The ESPN analyst revealed how the GSW forward boldly claimed that he would contain LeBron James. Ultimately, the King went off for 40 points.
“We all see that there’s like a little bit of an agenda going on. But at the end of the day we know for a fact it was kind of like when he was like ‘well, if I played LeBron wouldn’t go for 40’. Those were his exact words and Bron went for 40 in game six the very next game. So come on Defensive Player of the Year, let’s just call it how we see it,” Jefferson reminded Green.
Additionally, Jefferson mentioned that Gobert did his best to prevent Luka from scoring the game-winner. The latter’s brilliance is such that no player in the league could’ve stopped that shot, per Richard.
“They might not have won it, but he did as good of a job as anybody… Luka led the league in scoring and that was the shot that he got him to contest. At the end of the game he did a good job,” Richard Jefferson concluded.
Richard Jefferson is accurate when stating that Green had a “bit of an agenda”. Through all his actions – on podcasts, interviews, social media, and on national TV–it is evident that the multiple-time champion seems to be jealous of the Frenchman winning 4 Defensive Player of the Year trophies.
It’s great to see the legends of the game standing up for Rudy Gobert and not allowing Green to continue to bully the former.
NBA veteran called out Draymond Green for comments regarding Rudy Gobert
Draymond Green didn’t even bother trying to hide his hatred for Rudy Gobert. Following Game 2 of the Western Conference Finals, Green had a peculiar interaction with the crowd at the Target Center. Responding to the “Draymond sucks” chants, Green surprised everyone by retaliating with, “Rudy sucks, not me. What did I do?”
Immediately after the clip of the incident went viral on social media, different enthusiasts and analysts gave their two cents on the same. While there seemed to be a few die-hard fans of the Warriors finding Green’s comments amusing, a majority of the basketball community didn’t.
Eddie Johnson, an NBA veteran, was one of the more prominent names to condemn the 34-year-old. The Phoenix Suns commentator took to X (formerly “Twitter”) and highlighted the unprofessionalism.
You cannot let your jealousy of a man who has 4 DPOY to your 1, cloud your professionalism on national TV as an employed analyst ! A current player ripping another for personal reasons who is in a conference final and you are hired to talk about the game is wrong! https://t.co/pMHesWkxRw
— Eddie A Johnson (@Jumpshot8) May 25, 2024
Draymond Green has been mocking Rudy Gobert for the past several years. For the longest time, Gobert had to bear the brunt of the unnecessary slander with no one to defend him. It’s great to see numerous esteemed individuals stand up for the European star finally. Hopefully, their actions could result in Green never publicly disrespecting Rudy Gobert again.
