The fallout from the Golden State Warriors 123-118 win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Friday is still ongoing, as Warriors big man Draymond Green slammed Grizzlies head coach Taylor Jenkins and rookie big man Zach Edey for being soft after their repeated complaints about Green committing an intentional foul on Edey, which the league deemed a Flagrant 1 foul one day after the game was over.
Green went off on Jenkins and Edey on his podcast, The Draymond Green Show.
“You got janky Taylor Jenkins, who’s a softie. Bro this game 11 and you’re running to the media crying about a foul. Guess what you just taught your 7’3″ rookie? How to be emotional and run to the media talking about a foul. We’re big men, you don’t run to the media crying about a foul.”
Draymond didn’t go easy on the rookie Edey either.
“He’s supposed to protect Ja Morant! You setting him up so that Ja Morant gonna end up protecting him. He’s big enough to have fooled people that he can be a little tough, and now nobody believes you. Now Joel Embiid is gonna try to put his chest into his stanchion just to see, ‘Huh, I think he might be a little soft.'”
“Y’all gotta stop breeding these soft dudes man. Stop making these guys turn out to be soft and snitches because you are big men.”
The foul that created this issue came when Green hooked Edey’s leg and dragged him to the floor when the Grizzlies tried to run the fast break. It was an egregiously intentional foul, with Draymond’s history of making plays like this further upsetting the Grizzlies.
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Coach Jenkins had slammed Green for not respecting the code between players in the NBA by committing that foul.
“Overall, thought he was really good,” Jenkins said of Edey (h/t ESPN). “And very disappointing, there was that one play, we were about to start the break and he’s been playing really hard to try to outlet, and Draymond grabs his leg and pulls him down and it doesn’t get reviewed. So I know there’s a code in this league, and I don’t understand how that wasn’t reviewed. Very disappointing.”
Even Warriors head coach Steve Kerr agreed with the league that the foul should be upgraded to a Flagrant 1, with the coach offering no defense for Green’s behavior.
“I agree with it; he grabbed him. Definitely a take foul like they called. But I had no problem with it being upgraded to a flagrant 1. It’s not a basketball play. It was more than a ‘take’ foul.”
Is Draymond trying to gaslight everyone? This is a bizarre attack on a rookie and a coach for an egregiously dirty play by Green. Joel Embiid was slammed by everyone for doing something similar to Mitchell Robinson during the Playoffs, and we still haven’t seen Robinson return from the ankle injury Embiid caused.
Green has a long-standing beef with the Grizzlies stretching back to their 2021 Play-In Tournament matchup, but to attack Jenkins and Edey for being rightfully upset about him getting away with another unsportsmanlike play on the court is insane. Even his own coach chose not to defend him, which says a lot about this situation.
Green is hot-headed on the court but also integral to the Warriors’ success. If he tries something like this again, the league might be forced to punish him so they can send a message the same way they did last season.
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