For years, Draymond Green seemed like the perfect fit alongside the Inside the NBA crew. Four years ago, he signed a long-term deal with TNT and began making guest appearances after the Golden State Warriors were no longer in the playoffs, which often happens much earlier than Green would like. Green was a natural, comfortably fitting into the banter between Ernie, Kenny, Chuck, and sometimes Shaq,
Something has changed in the last few seasons. Now what used to be pointed but light-hearted banter
is coming off as simply mean-spirited, like when Green slammed Charles Barkley’s late-career stint with the Houston Rockets.
Responding to Barkley’s assertion that, “Sports are for young people,” Green said that his goal was to, “I think the goal is simply not to look like you in a Houston Rockets uniform.” When Kenny “The Jet” Smith asked Green what that looked like, Green asked, “Did you see it? I saw it.”
The diss didn’t land, in part because Barkley was pretty good as a Rocket, making the All-Star team and the Western Conference Finals in his first season as part of a “Big Three But Old” alongside Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. Even when Scottie Pippen joined up for a single season in 1998-99, Barkley averaged 16.1 points and 12.3 rebounds as a willing third option on a team that won at a 51-win pace.
This is not to ignore that insulting other members of the panel is a foundational element to what Inside the NBA has been, along with racing Kenny to the video board, shoving Shaq into Christmas trees, body-shaming the beautiful women of San Antonio, failing to find sponsorship for the Neat-O Stat of the Night, and wildly underestimating the distance from Earth to the moon.
But the problem is that Green didn’t actually deliver a zinger, or a punchline at all. Smith even set him up for a chance to burn Barkley, or describe why he was so bad on the Rockets, and Green just gave him a weird look and didn’t expand. Essentially, Green responded like he would to a critic on social media, giving back the “Thinking Face” emoji.
It’s a sign that Green is spending too much time both podcasting by himself and reading internet comments. Green no longer has Baron Davis as a co-host, so the majority of his podcast content is a solo monologue. That doesn’t keep him ready for the pushback, bantering, or playfulness that comes from being on a panel show. Being on Inside the NBA isn’t about owning people, or clapping back, or Epically Destroying your co-hosts. More than anything, the show is about jokes.
That element of humor has really disappeared with Green, whether it’s from insecurity about his own decline, the extra cussedness that comes with aging, or public sentiment turning dramatically against him after punching Jordan Poole (or choking Rudy Gobert, or hitting Jusuf Nurkic, or stomping on Domantas Sabonis, etc.).
When Green told a heckling Paul Pierce, “You thought you was Kobe?” and told him, “There ain’t gonna be no farewell tour,” it was mean but funny. Pierce really did try to end his career on a high note in his hometown of Los Angeles, a place that did not particularly care about him or the Los Angeles Clippers. (Note: Pierce briefly ran a truly terrible hookah bar called “The Truth Hollywood” and it did not succeed.)
So when Green tried to mock Barkley’s Rockets career, the issue wasn’t that Green was being inaccurate or disrespectful. It was that he wasn’t funny. Make fun of him being out of shape! Say Barkley’s defense was worse than his golf swing! Remind Barkley that in his last playoff appearance, he lost to Shaq!
A key element of what makes Barkley great is his ability to laugh at himself, but there has to be a punchline. Green’s own persona is increasingly based on responding angrily to every critical remark abut him, the opposite of taking a joke. And as recently as two years ago, Green and Barkley delightfully went at each other late in the All-Star Game broadcast.
Is the problem that angry responses are more likely to go viral? Has Green become less comfortable on camera as his own NBA future gets murkier? Regardless, Green should shift his tone, simply because it makes for much better television.
And bring some churros to the set the next time ESPN has a Spurs game. With the Chuckster, time and fried dough heal all wounds.
