National Basketball Association

Draymond Green to Pierce: "Nobody care what you did"

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

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The Warriors’ Draymond Green has fired back at the Clippers’ veteran forward, Paul Pierce, who criticized Kevin Durant’s decision to join Golden State.

Draymond Green is already proving to be a great teammate, hitting Kevin Durant with the lovely assist. He’s firing back at Los Angeles Clippers’ forward Paul Pierce for coming after Durant. And when Green strikes back, he goes for the jugular.

For the second time since Durant announced his decision to join the Golden State Warriors, Pierce is talking trash. A guy who didn’t win until Kevin Garnett and Ray Allen joined his team, he criticized the former MVP for signing with the team that beat him. Now he’s questioning Durant’s competitive nature on Sirius XM radio (via Hoops Hype)

“I could have left Boston years ago but I stuck it out. I just feel like when you’re that close as a competitor, you don’t go join the team that just pushed you out. That’s just me personally but we’re living in a day and time where there’s a new generation. Guys I don’t think they are as hungry or competitive as my generation was, and that’s why you’ll probably see more of that.”

Pierce, whose super team loses preseason games by 50 points, just sounds ridiculous. There’s no other way to put it than to say he’s salty. And he’s absolutely wrong.

Durant recently came out and said that he was going to say what was on his mind. He was tired of the media twisting his words to create false narratives and tension. Green took the lead on this one (via Anthony Slater of the San Jose Mercury News):

I just wonder at what point do they get bored talking about the same thing. You got all these guys talking. Like (Paul) Pierce today, like, dude nobody care what you did or who you did it for. Just give it a break. Everybody got something to say and want to take everything he say and twist it. Like, he play with the Warriors. OKC has their team, we have our team. He left there. Nobody complain when somebody leave Apple and go to Google. Aren’t they in competition with each other? Nobody talk junk about the CEO who leaves Apple and goes to Google. As a basketball player, you are the CEO of a business. You are a business. Kevin Durant is a big business. He is the CEO of that business. So him going to play basketball for a different team, the CEO decided to leave where he was at and go somewhere else.”

He added:

But there’s so many guys in this league that are so stupid they don’t think like that. They don’t think business wise. It happens every day in the world. But in basketball it’s a problem. Aren’t you competitive in your day job if you work for Apple? Don’t you want to outdo Google? What’s the difference on the basketball court. It’s your day job. You want to do what’s better for you. If it’s better for your family life, better for your happiness. Ain’t no one criticizing them. I don’t understand it. I’ll never understand it. So that’s just me. And I’d be willing to bet my salary ain’t many guys in this league more competitive than me.”

Draymond Green doesn’t know how to do anything else but go hard. And he absolutely went in here. But that’s not a surprise.

It’s a strange argument from Pierce and a fascinating response from Green. To tell a future Hall of Famer that “nobody care what you did” is peak Draymond Green. It’s fantastic.

The Warriors and Clippers’ rivalry looked like it was started to die because it was so one-sided. But Pierce’s comments and Green’s response might rekindle that fire. If this rivalry is going to re-start, it’s going to have to be with words because the basketball aspect of it isn’t really close at all.