Draymond Green had to get something off his chest after the Golden State Warriors defeated the Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday night. And he was absolutely on-point with his impassioned address.
Green took the postgame microphone (before metaphorically mic dropping) to discuss the unfair treatment of players who are embroiled in trade rumors.
There’s a clear double standard, Green said, with players getting ostracized and fined for demanding a trade (and sometimes deciding not to show up for work) while teams get off scot-free when they bench a player — preventing him from working when he wants to — while they search for a trade. Such is the case with Cavaliers big man Andre Drummond, who didn’t play on Monday while Cleveland had him on the trading block. He won’t play anytime soon for the Cavs. Clearly, that situation left Green frustrated. And it’s hardly unique in the NBA.
Draymond calls out the NBA's double standard for players who request a trade vs. teams who sit a player in order to trade them pic.twitter.com/nKcbKvA2MM
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) February 16, 2021
If you’d prefer to read Green’s words, we’ve got them here:
“I would like to talk about something that’s really bothering me, and it’s the treatment of players in this league,” Green said to open his postgame press conference. “To watch Andre Drummond, before the game, sit on the sidelines, then go to the back, and to come out in street clothes because a team is going to trade him, it’s (expletive).”
“Because when James Harden asked for a trade and essentially dogged it … no one’s going to fight back that James was dogging it his last days in Houston,” Green said. “But he was castrated for wanting to go to a different team and everybody destroyed that man, and yet a team can come out and say, ‘Oh, we want to trade a guy,’ and then that guy has to go sit, and if he doesn’t stay professional then he’s a cancer, and he’s not good in someone’s locker room, and he’s the issue.”
“At some point, as players, we need to be treated with the same respect and have the same rights that the team can have,” Green said. “Because as a player, you’re the worst person in the world when you want a different situation. But a team can say they’re trading you. And that man is to stay in shape, he is to stay professional. And if not, his career is on the line. At some point, this league has to protect the players from embarrassment like that.”
“As players, we’re told, ‘No, you can’t say that, you can’t say this.’ But teams can?” Green said. “It goes along the same lines of when everyone wants to say, ‘Ah man, that young guy can’t figure it out.’ But no one wants to say the organization can’t figure it out. At some point, the players must be respected in these situations, and it’s ridiculous and I’m sick of seeing it.”
Awesome stuff from Draymond.
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