The Draymond Green–Austin Rivers Podcast Fight and NBA “Longevity Rot”
Do millennial players last long enough to be remembered worse?
Every day brings a fight between NBA player podcasters. This time it’s Draymond Green vs. Austin Rivers. A lot of the fighting is related to how podcast aggregation works. A player makes a comment, the most provocative clip goes viral, and then another player responds somewhere, and the most provocative clip of that goes viral.
On his own podcast, Draymond said of Steve Kerr:
As much as Steve has done for me in basketball, part of me thinks he’s hindered me in my career and what I could have become.
This pull quote was often presented absent the additional context Green added:
But what he’s also helped me become, you gotta take the good with the bad. When I think of who I was offensively as a player and who I became, I think part of that is due to him. I don’t hold that against him. I’m forever grateful he still put me in position to be successful, and I could become Draymond Green despite my offensive role on our team.
Having been around the Warriors during Draymond’s prime, this all tracks. He broke out as a starter in 2014-2015, finishing second in DPOY voting, but truly blossomed offensively the next season, when Kerr had to take a break after his back surgery resulted in a cerebrospinal fluid leak. With Luke Walton coaching the team, Green was empowered to do whatever. The result? The best statistical season of his life. Green averaged 14 points, 9.5 rebounds and 7.4 assists, while shooting 39 percent from 3. The Warriors won 73 games.
This outcome led to a lot of tension. Nobody had projected the second rounder to be a star in his own right. He was looking at himself in a totally new light, and had increasingly more reason to see Steve Kerr as a hindrance. When Steve came back, he was critical of Green’s point forward freelancing and free shooting. Teammates had to physically separate Green from Kerr at halftime of that famous Oklahoma City game. Draymond yelled, “I AM NOT A ROBOT,” and angrily, but I’m assuming not literally, invited Kerr to suck his dick.
As an aside, that fight ruined my relationship with Draymond. I elaborated on it in some minor article and he took it as betrayal. I’d been an early complimentary voice in his rise to prominence, but just as he seized stardom, it looked to him like I was taking sides. I’d been a Draymond Guy, but in his moment of public critique I had revealed myself to be a Steve Guy. That’s my guess at his perception back then. It’s not like these matters were discussed calmly. I have vague recollections of him screaming at me in the locker room and my inner monologue reading, “He’s talking so fast that I can’t make sense of what he’s saying.” You’d think an enraged Draymond Green yelling in your face would constitute a more vivid memory, but he was such an energetic blur that I couldn’t latch onto specific observations. Arguing with Draymond was like trying to paint a portrait of the Tasmanian Devil mid twirl.
Draymond didn’t talk to me for weeks following Oklahoma City, in any context. When I asked a question in a scrum he let an awkward silence hang before moving on to a different reporter. He eventually started taking my questions again, but I undid the reconciliation with my Draymond Green Problem article for ESPN The Magazine. Years later I apologized for my end and the dynamic reduced to “cool, but cordial.” What triggered the apology? I’d hurt my knee while jogging on the street and Draymond saw me in the hall at Oracle, obviously in a bad way. He checked in. I appreciated that and took it as a signal that we could bury the hatchet.
I wouldn’t say I like or dislike Draymond Green. In some ways I’ve both more reason to hate him and more reason not to. I completely understand why he pisses people off and how that’s led to a broader dumping on his basketball legacy. I’m sensitive to how, even though I know him, I don’t really know him, especially not now.
Austin Rivers doesn’t know Draymond either and he might even have less standing to make statements on whether Steve Kerr held him back.