Dray rants on broken NBA awards system & how it can cost players millions I The Draymond Green Show

What's up everybody? It's Draymond Green. Make sure you subscribe to the Volumes YouTube channel below so you don't miss any more of this great content going forward. As I spoke about earlier this week, the Most Improved Player Award. Again, you cannot tell me that Jordan Poole, that there's anyone in the NBA that has improved more than Jordan Poole. Now, when I look at Dejounte Murray's numbers, absolutely incredible, incredible numbers, incredible jumps that he's made. I think he may have added 6.5 or 7 points per game to his points per game average. I think he doubled his assist output. Or doubled his rebound output. It's one of the two he doubled. He went from 5.4 assists per game to 9.2. Exactly. Like, I don't disagree with Dejounte Murray being in that conversation and possibly being the winner. I don't disagree with that one bit. I totally disagree with Ja Morant being a part of the conversation because Ja Morant to me is a part of the MVP conversation. Now, whether he ended up a finalist or not, that's neither here nor there. Ja Morant is a part of the MVP conversation. The reason Ja Morant is a part of the MVP conversation is in large part due to the year he had last year to where everybody's looking like, "Oh man, if he continues on this trajectory, he's an MVP candidate." And that's what he's done. So for him to be a part of the most improved player conversation, I disagree with that. I, like, to me what that's screaming out is almost a young MVP award. Like, okay, Joker's gonna get the MVP or Joel's gonna get the MVP. But on that list, there are some younger guys who could be in that conversation. And Ja Morant is one of those guys. And to me, it's almost like it's a young MVP award, not most improved player award. Now, I'm not taking anything away from Ja Morant and the improvements that he's made. I think it's been incredible. Yeah. But in the same token, Draymond Green. John Morant was the number 2 pick in NBA draft. Like, I'm sorry, but when you draft someone with the number 2 pick, doesn't always happen, but you expect them to be that good. That's why you drafted them with the number 2 pick. Because if you draft someone with the number 2 pick, that's supposed to be a guy that you can now build your franchise around. So Ja Morant's supposed to be this good. Dejounte Murray was what, the 29th pick? Again, I can't argue him being in that conversation. You look at who else is in the conversation, Darius Garland. Darius Garland, who, unless you just don't know basketball, you didn't see him on this trajectory. But I know basketball, and I knew when I went to see Darius Garland play USC in LA, when he was at Vanderbilt, that this was the trajectory Darius Garland was gonna be on. If you didn't, you need to question your basketball cap, which a lot of these people do. I think the voting system is one of those things that's completely ridiculous and outdated. Like, there's no criteria in place for any of these awards. There's no, you have to play this amount of games or not. There isn't, well, what makes someone the most improved player? There's no criteria in place. MVP award, there's no criteria in place. We've seen a guy win in 7th, his team in 7th. We've seen guys win it, team in 1st. Joker wins it this year, his team's in 6th. Joel wins it this year, His team was what, 4th in the East? I don't really, like, it's actually a shame that there's no criteria to this. The voting on it is also a shame. I think when you look at voting for All-NBA, when you look at voting for Defensive Player of the Year, Most Improved Player, MVP. Ultimately, these things are voted on by the media, which I think is absolutely disgusting because these are human beings that could have personal issues against guys because that does happen, because let's face it. These are human beings. And they ultimately end up deciding on like $40 to $50 million for guys. Like Jason Tatum did not make All-NBA last year. He lost $37 million, I think. Mm-hmm. All because someone who's watching the game decided that he wasn't an All-NBA performer. These are also people that don't watch every game. Like, it's not like, um, if you're, if you're a beat writer for, let's say you work at ESPN, but you're covering the Golden State Warriors, you're not watching all of the Boston Celtics games. Yeah. So how is it possible that you can even say, that you can even say Jason Tatum isn't All-NBA last year? How is it possible that you can say Jordan Poole isn't the most improved player and you have not watched him play all year, nor did you watch him play all last year? How is it possible? And so there's a huge flaw in the system. And it's ridiculous that it hasn't been changed, especially with the amount of money that's at stake. You mean to tell me someone who's upset at me because I didn't want to do an interview with them, um, can ultimately decide if $37 million goes into my bank account or not? That's ridiculous. But it all goes back to the notion of what I've been talking about and how players are treated. Um, because— The guy who works at Goldman Sachs Bonus isn't decided by the employ— not the employee, the clients that are accounts they're working on. Like that client don't then call the CEO and say, "Hey, John deserves a bonus." Or somebody from CNBC doesn't call and say, "Hey, Jamie Dimon, your employee, he deserves a $37 million bonus. That doesn't happen. But however, that still happens to be the case in basketball. And I don't understand it. Like, we're past the days of guys not understanding business. We're past the days of guys— Draymond Green. Being completely oblivious to what's going on in their profession, how they can make money, the things they can do with that money. We're past those days. The fact that the power of these awards, the power of these All-NBA teams are still decided by someone who could have never possibly played basketball a day in their life. Draymond Green. Which means there are things going on in the game that you just can't see. You want me to tell you how I know there's things going on in the game that you just can't see? I absolutely love football. I watch football so much. I enjoy watching football more than I enjoy watching basketball. I watch football religiously. Since a child. I feel like I know a lot about football. There's so many things going on during an NFL game that I miss, that I don't know that thing is going on. You know why? Because I don't have experience in doing that thing. I don't have experience in doing that. So there's little games within the game that I don't even realize is going on because that's not what I do. Mm-hmm. I study football just like some of these people say they study basketball. As someone who's a part of the media now, I think it's absolutely disgusting that at some point I may have a vote in deciding who wins Defensive Player of the Year. I may absolutely hate Marcus Smart. You don't know that. How do you know? I could not vote for Marcus Smart because I just hate him. I don't hate Marcus Smart, but you get my point. I could absolutely hate him. Okay, so I'm 32 years old. By 40, I could have a vote. Guess what? That mean a player that's in his first year will be in his ninth year, and if I don't like him now, I can then decide that I don't want to vote for him and cost him $40 million. You think that don't happen now? You can't possibly think that doesn't happen. A couple years ago, I had the most first place votes. Not a couple years ago when I lost to Kawhi, I don't even remember what year that was, but I had the most first place votes. Some guy left me off his entire ballot. What? You think that was a mistake? Or was it something else behind it? That ultimately changes the complexion of my career. That's one more Defensive Player of the Year I have. That could be the difference in Hall of Fame or not. That's someone deciding that based off what merit? Like what, what, what is that based off of? Draymond Green. I don't get it. And it's shameful and it's ridiculous that no one talks about this. That it's just like, okay, you know why? It's okay because of how we're viewed as athletes. That's the only reason it's okay. Because again, MSN, BC, They don't decide what Jamie Diamond's baldness is. So it baffles me that us as athletes are still decided by somebody from Bleacher Report, somebody from ESPN, somebody from Blew.com. I mean, like, people create their own websites and become like— Yeah. These media personalities because they did a good job creating a website. Then they ultimately decide someone makes $40 million on that? Absolutely ridiculous. It's absolutely ridiculous. And it's a shame. Shame. That Jordan Poole, not only will he not win most improved player, he's actually not even in the top 3. And he's actually the most improved player in the NBA. Kid's out there looking like Steph Curry. 12 months ago, he was on his way outta the NBA. He's now in the playoffs out there looking like Stephen Wardell, Wardell Stephen Curry II. That's who he out there looking like right now. And y'all mean to tell me a kid that was on his way outta the NBA 12 months ago is now out there mimicking and looking like Stephen Curry? With all due respect to Steph, we all know Steph changed the game of basketball. Jordan Poole, if you look at his, he's 22 years old. We won our first NBA championship 2015. He's 15 years old. You can't possibly think that kid's not going to the gym like, "Oh man, Steph Curry shooting these shots. I'm gonna shoot these shots." So he's out there mimicking Steph. He's doing an incredible job of doing it. 12 months ago, the kid was already almost outta the NBA. And he's not the most improved player, you outta your mind. You are out of your mind if he's not the most improved player, which he isn't by these terrible standards that we have to live by. He isn't. But you're outta your mind, and y'all wonder why I say basketball heads don't know basketball. You clearly don't know basketball. Yeah. You clearly don't know basketball. That's why I said I want to come help save the media because you're losing all credibility. People say stuff with no repercussions. They just be talking just to talk. Eh, learn the game. Learn the game. Draymond Green. If you gonna do this job. Learn the game, 'cause it's a beautiful game. It's being ruined by these narratives. It's being ruined. Learn the game if you gonna do that. So I think, I think it's absolutely ridiculous. And hopefully the NBA will, Realize, hey, this is such an outdated thing. This needs to be changed. Whether it's some mix of players, whether it's coaches, whether there's some committee that the NBA puts together, there's a bunch of things. And at this point it's just lazy. It needs to be changed. Unless we're gonna start allowing CNBC to decide who's getting a bonus at JPMorgan Chase. It needs to be changed. Stop looking at us like we're idiots. We're businessmen too. It's probably time to wrap our head around that. Okay? All of us ain't dumb. That's just the reality. Yeah.