On the latest episode of The Draymond Green Show with Baron Davis, Draymond Green revealed he intentionally tried to cause a rift between Stephen Curry and Chris Paul when he entered the NBA.
“CP is right at the heart of everything we were trying to accomplish,” Green said. “He was the top dog at point guard. So, I come in, and I’m watching him and Steph’s relationship, and I’m like, that ain’t gonna work for us to be who we want to be. Him kind of being your big bro.”
“I’m just looking at it and I’m like, ‘Yo, he playing on that. He using that to keep you here, but I don’t like that.’ So, I start being messy in between and creating a rift,” Green continued. “Because I’m like I need this rift in order for us to be able to move ahead of them.”
“They were super tight,” Green added. “I intentionally started creating a rift because I felt like CP was using that to his advantage. And then as I’m creating a rift with them, me and CP like (clashed). And under no circumstance do I even want to correct it.”
Paul and Curry do go way back. After the latter was selected with the seventh pick of the 2009 NBA Draft by the Golden State Warriors, he worked out with the former. The two then vacationed together later that summer at Disney World in Orlando, Florida.
A year later, Curry also showed up at the Chris Paul Elite Guard Basketball Camp in Winston-Salem. As Green stated, the two guards were very close and he wanted to change that. Their relationship would worsen over time, although I’m not sure if that was just down to Draymond.
Curry’s Warriors faced Paul’s Los Angeles Clippers in the first round of the 2014 NBA playoffs and that was the beginning of a rivalry between the teams. The Clippers won that series in seven games but the Warriors had the upper hand in their meetings in the years that followed and became the dominant team in the Western Conference.
With Curry and Paul fighting for supremacy in the West in those years, it was somewhat inevitable that their relationship wouldn’t quite be the same as it once was. It was no longer big brother and little brother, but two of the very best in the business trying to prove they were the top dog.
Paul was traded to the Houston Rockets in 2017 and his rivalry with Curry only intensified after that. They faced off in a memorable Western Conference Finals series in 2018, which the Warriors won in seven games. Paul injured his hamstring in Game 5 in that series and you wonder how differently things might have panned out had he not missed the last two games.
Following another playoff victory for the Warriors over the Rockets in 2018, the rivalry between Curry and Paul somewhat died down. There was still some tension in the air, though, when they met on the court. Curry ruthlessly told Paul, “This ain’t 2014 no more” when they faced off back in 2023. Little did the Warriors star know at the time, that they’d become teammates a few months later.
Paul was traded to the Warriors in the 2023 offseason and after years of intense competition, he and Curry became teammates. They seemed to enjoy their time together too.
Paul and Green ended up mending their relationship as well, with the latter calling the former one of his top five favorite teammates ever. They realized they were quite alike during that time and it didn’t take much time for hostilities to die down. They weren’t teammates for long, though, as the Warriors waived Paul after the season and he ended up signing with the San Antonio Spurs this past offseason.
Green and Curry will face off against Paul on the court soon enough, as the Warriors take on the Spurs on Nov. 23 at Frost Bank Center. While the relationships are much better now, don’t expect the Warriors stars to go easy on Paul or vice-versa.
For now, though, Green’s focus will be on their next game against the Oklahoma City Thunder at Paycom Center on Sunday at 7 PM ET. The 7-2 Warriors are coming off a 136-117 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers and will be keen to return to winning ways against the Thunder.
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