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Draymond Green Looked So Foolish After Insulting Charles Barkley

A disparaging jab from the Warriors start didn’t go over well with ‘Inside the NBA’ cast and viewers.
Jimmy Traina|
‘Inside the NBA’ viewers weren’t happy with Draymond Green’s shot at Charles Barkley.
‘Inside the NBA’ viewers weren’t happy with Draymond Green’s shot at Charles Barkley. | ESPN

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Golden State Warriors

1. Here’s what I wrote in Tuesday’s Traina Thoughts:

“Rough news here via Sports Business Journal. Kenny Smith will be missing three upcoming installments of Inside the NBA on ESPN and Draymond Green will be filling in for him.

“We don’t get episodes of Inside the NBA as frequently as we used to, so when it airs, we need the whole cast together. If Smith has to miss shows, though, why not just go with Ernie Johnson, Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal? Why does there have to be a fourth cast member? There is no need at all for Green to be shoehorned into the show.”

It turns out Shaq was missing from Wednesday’s Inside the NBA, not Smith, but that’s irrelevant.

The point is that the people who run Inside the NBA still want to make Draymond Green a thing on the show. I went in depth about this with media reporter Richard Deitsch on this week’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina.

I just don’t understand the appeal of Green as an analyst. Yes, he’s an NBA champion and was a big part of a legendary Warriors team.

Personally, though, I can’t get past Green punching a teammate in the face and constantly acting like a jerk on and off the court. I don’t understand rewarding him by putting him on the greatest sports television studio show of all time.

Ironically enough, I taped that podcast segment with Deitsch before Green’s cringeworthy and disrespectful moment on Wednesday night.

The crew of Johnson, Barkley and Smith were discussing the future of the Warriors and what looks like the end of their memorable run with Steve Kerr, Stephen Curry and Green.

“Sports are for young people,” Barkley said to Green. “You hope to have a great, long career, but nobody wins when they’re 37, 38.”

Green then fired back at Barkley by bringing up the end of Barkley’s career, saying, “I think the goal is just to not look like you in a Houston Rockets uniform.”

Now, I’m sure Green will come out today and say it was a joke, and I wouldn’t be surprised if Barkley ends up defending Green by saying he loves Draymond and it was all in good fun, yada, yada, yada.

But here’s what Green and Barkley and anyone else who watches the clip can’t deny: Green’s line about Barkley and the Rockets did not go over well at all with the panel. The silent reaction is all you need to know about how the rest of the cast felt about Green’s shot at Barkley.

There’s a term in pro wrestling called, “selling.” When your opponent hits you with a chair, you have to sell it by acting like you’re dead. When you’re rival insults you, you have to sell it and act like you’re devastated.

The Inside the NBA crew completely no-sold Green’s line.

It was so obvious that Ernie, Kenny and Charles felt it was at best unfunny and at worst disrespectful and insulting.

But this is who Green is. You know the saying, “When someone shows you who they are, believe them?” No one should be surprised by Green’s barb.

And viewers were not happy with Green going into Barkley’s proverbial home and mocking the Hall of Famer.

I said this on Tuesday. I said it on the podcast. I do not understand on any level whatsoever why Inside the NBA needs Green on the show if someone is absent. There is not one single reason why the show couldn’t have been Johnson, Smith and Barkley on Wednesday.

2. As I said above, this week’s SI Media With Jimmy Traina features a conversation about all the latest sports media news with Richard Deitsch of Sports Business Journal and CBC Sports.

In addition, New York Post columnist Mike Vaccaro joined for a segment to remember the career of legendary Yankees radio broadcaster John Sterling.

The show wraps up with Sal Licata joining me for our weekly “Traina Thoughts” segment.

You can listen to the SI Media With Jimmy Traina podcast below or on Apple and Spotify.

You can also watch SI Media With Jimmy Traina on YouTube.

3. You know what’s ironic about Chris “Mad Dog” Russo calling out Ben Stiller for blowing off Monday’s Knicks game so he could attend the Met Gala? Russo did it on Stephen A. Smith’s show. The same Smith who purports to be a huge Knicks fan yet blew off playoff games to attend WrestleMania and the White House Correspondents Dinner.

4. There wasn’t a second spitter during Wednesday’s Mets game, but there was a second eater as SNY sideline reporter Steve Gelbs shared a massive hot dog with Keith Hernandez, who proclaimed, “It’s kind of beefy” after his bite.

5. I still to this day remember being speechless the first time I walked into the old Yankee Stadium as a kid, so I felt this video of a young Cubs fan being told he was going to Wrigley Field for a game.

6. In light of the latest hard-to-believe story in the Dianna Russini-Mike Vrabel scandal, via TMZ, this post needed to be acknowledged.

7. RANDOM VIDEO OF THE DAY: I’ll always have a soft spot for Ted Turner for two things he gave us: Braves games on TBS at 7:05 p.m. and WCW wrestling on Saturdays at 6:05.

Be sure to catch up on past editions of Traina Thoughts and check out the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast hosted by Jimmy Traina on Apple, Spotify or Google. You can also follow Jimmy on X and Instagram.

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Jimmy Traina
JIMMY TRAINA

Jimmy Traina is a staff writer and podcast host for Sports Illustrated. A 20-year veteran in the industry, he’s been covering the sports media landscape for seven years and writes a daily column, Traina Thoughts. Traina has hosted the Sports Illustrated Media Podcast since 2018, a show known for interviews with some of the most important and powerful people in sports media. He also was the creator and writer of SI’s Hot Clicks feature from 2007 to '13.

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