Draymond Green sat out the NBA All-Star Game on Sunday night, but his competitive juices may have been flowing more than anyone on the court.
The Warriors star, working sideline duty for TBS’ alternate All-Star broadcast, got irked upon hearing comparisons of himself and Jazz All-Star Rudy Gobert.
“You keep mentioning me in the same sentence with him — we’re not alike,” Green said on the broadcast.
When Kenny Smith asked whether he was talking about Gobert or Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo, Green responded, “I didn’t say Mutombo.”
So then the beef is with Rudy Gobert comparisons?
“We ain’t nothing alike,” Green said.
Sensing the sudden tension, host Ernie Johnson cracked a joke that got Green to laugh.
“Did we strike a nerve?” Johnson asked. “Apply a tourniquet down there.”
The feud between the two defensive stalwarts seems to have been brewing for some time. Green mocked Gobert for crying over his 2019 All-Star Game snub.
Green, 31, won the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2016-17 and is a six-time NBA All-Defensive team honoree. In his career, which includes three championships, he has averaged 8.7 points, 6.9 rebounds, 5.4 assists, 1.4 steals and one block per game.
Gobert, 29, has won the last three Defensive Player of the Year awards and is a five-time NBA All-Defensive team honoree. The French center has averaged 12.3 points, 11.5 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 2.2 blocks and 0.7 steals per game.
Both were voted to play in Sunday’s game but Green sat out with a back injury. So instead he joined the TNT crew — with whom he signed a multiyear deal last month to be an analyst while he keeps playing. If they ever need to get him riled up in the future, they now know how to poke the bear.