Draymond Green Went To A Dark Place & Severed Ties With Stephen A Smith Over Ugly Live TV Gimmick

The narrative about Draymond Green keeps changing. Sometimes he is the ultimate villain. At other times, he is the hero. This season, in particular, has been quite chaotic for the Golden State Warriors veteran. Missing games because of suspensions, techs raining on him, and getting tossed out. The final nail in the coffin was when he received an indefinite suspension for hitting Jusuf Nurkić in the head.

Of course, before that, there was the Rudy Gobert chokehold. While it caused quite the damage to an already struggling Dubs team, what affected the 4x champion the most were the comments and takes of fans, analysts, and just about everyone with an account or a YouTube channel. That practically describes quite a chunk of the planet. Joining Shaquille O’Neal on his The Big Podcast With Shaq, Green opened up about how they affected him, badly.

“It took me through a range of emotions though, like it pissed me off. It made me sad. It made me just sit and think, took me to dark places,” Draymond admitted. However, it wasn’t just him who had to deal with the consequences. The father of four further explained how all the negative comments affected his family.

“My kids coming up to me like, ‘Daddy, they said you need help. You all right?’ I’m like, ‘Yeah, I’m great! Do I look all right to you?’ They’re like, ‘Yeah, but I saw something on YouTube. Somebody says you need help.’ When it starts to extend to my kids I’m like, listen … these are claims on my name that has no factual evidence.”

It is definitely not a situation anyone would want to be in! And with Dray’s history of on-court altercations, the chances of his past misdemeanors popping up at every other instance are high. Yet when it is someone of consequence that puts them out there, that is something the DPOY takes to heart.

Draymond Green “lost a lot of respect for a lot of people” during his suspension period

They say it is easy to distinguish between friends and those who pretend to be one when you are at your worst. It seems like one such realization hit Draymond Green hard. And it came from Stephen A. Smith. The 34-year-old’s indefinite suspension sparked a lot of debates on topics involving him to the general physicality in the NBA. While the opinions were mixed, obviously, it seemed like one thing everyone kept repeating was that he needed help.

As for the outspoken veteran analyst, Green revealed that Smith had reached out to him and said, “Yo, it’s been hard for a lot of us to talk about you these last few days.” While he appreciated the concern, DrayMagic feels Stephen A. could have done a lot more had he wanted to. Draymond came into the league in 2012. In his 12 years, he has gotten to know a lot of people.

Smith was one of them. So knowing him as well as he did (or thought he did) and watching him sit back quietly amidst all the ridiculous claims had Green take a step back and look at the people around him. “I know you got a job to do, I know you got to do your thing,” Dray said. “But at not one point did you say, ‘Well, y’all are saying this person is f**ked up and this person need help. Now, I know the person. Say what you want about the basketball player, that’s fine. But I know the person,'” he finished.

Although Draymond Green brought Smith into the conversation, he also meant those words for everyone who claimed to know and appreciate him as a human. “I lost a lot of respect for a lot of people,” he told Shaq in a muted voice. While his actions as a basketball player on the court are inexcusable, particularly in a time when the NBA is all about player safety, Green as a person is a gem. He is a dedicated father and husband and a loyal friend.

That’s something no one can take away from him and something his true well-wishers know and believe.