Despite growing up in the 1990s, Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green doesn’t revere that particular era of NBA basketball.
Green took out this week against NBA legends from the 1980s and 1990s who laud the era for its “physicality,” saying there is one thing that “baffles” him about those guys.
Here’s what Green said:
“Everybody running around acting like they were that. Y’all were getting bullied. So it baffles me when every guy, just because they played in the ‘80s, just because they played in the ‘90s, is like, man, if you played in our day, you’d get knocked out. No, not really, because it wouldn’t be you.”
Green, who grew up in Saginaw, Michigan, acknowledged that there were enforcers back then. He mentioned former Pistons Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn as examples of players who used to knock players out.
Even at a more physical age, though, that was not the entire league. Green also said that fines in the 1980s and 1990s were not comparable to those in the present. Green claimed he’d be hammered severely if he knocked someone out during a game now. He claimed it wasn’t the case when the game was more physical.
Green said he admires the old heads who were strong and didn’t mind squabbling in the past. However, he said that this was not the case throughout the league and that players were still being roughed up by enforcer-type.
Green said:
“We got YouTube, You can pull up them highlights and they ain’t got no YouTube fights. You see them on the court getting bullied, but they talking about you ain’t got punched in the face. These people be killing me.”
“Y’all were getting bullied”
Draymond has a message for those who glorify the physicality of basketball in the 1980s and ‘90s 😂 pic.twitter.com/BRxU5Z0SS9
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) June 7, 2022
On Twitter, Draymond Green is receiving a lot of support for his views. Many people applaud him for voicing what many NBA players are reluctant to say:
“Draymond is always stating facts. Going to be a great analyst one day,”
“This is 100,000% correct,”
“I love this dude so much,”
“This is such a good take,”
Sources: Dailycaller, NBCsports, Yahoo