Dray's "sh*tty" play, Will Smith vs. Chris Rock, Kyrie back in Brooklyn | 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. Going around the association, the Warriors are 1-5 since Steph went out and since I've returned. I have been a -41 in the 7 games that I've played, which is absolutely mind-boggling to me. But in saying that, who can put their finger on it better than anyone is me. Which is why a couple nights ago, which I've gotten a lot of backlash from, by the way, and not backlash in a bad way, backlash in like people like, hold on, man. Like, stop it. Like, give it a break. But the reality is, is I'm always gonna be honest. As you know, man, maybe a week ago now, I called out my teammates. I called out us, not just my teammates. I called out us for being soft. I called out us for getting punked. I called out us for laying down and not competing at the level that we know that it takes to compete at and in order to win in the NBA. And so in doing that and being a leader, one thing I hate is a leader that can call someone else out but think their shit don't stink because you, my friend, are not a leader. You, my friend, are a phony. You, my friend, are fake. And so I don't really get with the whole, I'm gonna call this guy out or I'm gonna call my teammates out. But when your shit is stinking the gym up, you can't call yourself out. When your shit is stinking up the office, you can't call yourself out. And any other industry, we can go down the list. I don't respect leaders like that. So don't ever expect me to be a leader like that. And so in saying that, as I said, I caught a little backlash from people that know the game. Game from people that are in my corner, from people that are not in my corner and just simply fans of basketball and just saying like, yo, give yourself a break. You come off a very serious injury. We know the team isn't what the team could be without you. And all of that stuff. Thanks. I appreciate it. But the reality is I've been terrible. I've been terrible defensively. I've been terrible offensively. Yeah. And so that's just what it is. Now, what am I going to do to fix that? Well, I'm going to continue to do what I've been doing, which is putting the work in. And ultimately my whole life is a product of hard work. You put the work in, you get the results. I know I've put the work in, but I also know things don't happen overnight. You know, you don't just go from missing 2 and a half, almost 3 months of basketball while everybody's playing at a high level and just return and that's that. You know, it doesn't work like that. The reality is, is in my mind, I think it worked like that and I thought it worked like that. And I just assumed that I'll come right back playing the way I was when I left off. But this is also my first time having an injury that kept me out that long. And so in my mind, I'm like, yeah, like I've been working harder, just probably harder than I've ever worked. I've improved things that, and muscles that I never even knew I had in my body and that existed. Like I've been putting the work in, I'm gonna see the results. I haven't, and that's okay. But I think there are a ton of things that I can get better at. I think there's a ton of things that I will get better at. I think my personal frustration with myself has been everything has just been a step slow for me. You know, I see a pass to make a pass. I go to finally make the pass and boom, it's a turnover. You know, like, ah, like, you know, just kind of tapping back into those quick twitch muscles and, Reading and reacting to things, it's taken a little while for it to come back, a little longer than I expected. But like I said, that happens. But there are things that I know for certain that I will get better at. Covering up guys' mistakes on the defensive end, I'll get better at. Not making mistakes myself, I'll get that back. On the offensive end, everything will come back. So I don't have a doubt in my mind that it will. Mm-hmm. But I'll be 100% honest, I've been extremely frustrated and aware of how we look when I'm on the court. And you know, we have a lot of talking heads and a lot of basketball heads that probably couldn't make out how shitty that I've been on the court. So, you know, I have no problem with helping anyone out, you know, 'cause now all of a sudden something pops up on ESPN about like me having bad closeouts and stuff, which by the way, I'm all fine with, I don't take it personal. It's cool. It also took me to kind of let people in on the secret that I'm playing terrible. Like, you know, you can look at a box score and say, oh man, this guy is minus this, this game or minus that, that game. But if you don't thoroughly know the game of basketball, which a lot of people that talk about the game of basketball don't actually know the game of basketball, then you sometimes can't make those things out. So I threw myself under the bus. Now ESPN seems to wanna throw me under the bus, which is great. I helped you get there. No problem. And so I'm fine, we'll be fine. I think health is an important thing. So we definitely have to get healthy and need to get healthy. And I think we will get healthy. I think right now we are sitting here with 6 games left in the season. And so, you know, one thing you never wanna do is you don't wanna stumble into the playoffs. When you stumble into the playoffs, you stumble through the playoffs and out. And so these next 6 games, it's on me as a leader, it's on Klay Thompson as a leader with Steph Curry out to lead our guys, to lead our troops, to show them what it takes to compete at this level, to prepare for a nice deep playoff run. And hopefully that's ending in a championship, but that falls on us. We have to do a better job. We will do a better job. But that's kind of where we're at with the Warriors and the lay of the land with myself, obviously hoping to get Steph Curry back. We've been on the road for the last week, so haven't seen him. Don't really know what his status is. I have talked to him a little bit, but you know, don't really know how he's looking. Yeah. I will get the opportunity tomorrow to see him, which brings me to the fact of why I have this hat on. As you know, I like to come on, my barber is probably gonna be pissed off at me when he see this because as you know, Brownie Blends, he always keep me together and I like to keep myself well groomed, but coming off a 5-city, 7-day road trip, I'm wearing my struggle. Mm-hmm. And as you can see, I am. And it's funny because I remember coming on and taping a show. I think it maybe was the second or third episode. And my wife went at me. She said— I think I had a beanie on that day or something like that 'cause my hair looked like this. And so I'm going to acknowledge why I have this hat on today so she don't go at me like she did that day. But she said, "What are you selling? You look terrible." You don't have a haircut. And so I want you all to know I take that very seriously. She takes it very seriously, but I just haven't had the time. I landed back at 2:00 AM and when I landed back at 2:00 AM, here I am at 10:00 AM filming. So that's why I have this hat on. And that's kind of where we are with Steph Curry. Kyrie Irving back at home. Yeah. Are playing home games for the Nets, which I think is absolutely incredible. I wanna number one say kudos, shout out, and much respect to Kyrie Irving for standing his ground for what he believes in. So many times, all of us, most people are victim to not standing your ground for what you believe in because somebody wanna hit your pockets. You know, anytime somebody wants you to do something, they try to hit your pockets. And so— Yeah. They were hitting Kyrie pockets. And what did Kyrie do? I don't care. I'm— this is what I believe in. I'm not doing this. And that's just that. And so contrary or not contrary, but regardless to whatever your opinion may be on why Kyrie didn't play, on what Kyrie decided to do with his body, whatever your opinion is, I really don't care what your opinion is on it either way. I don't really care what your stance is on it. What I respect and what I love is how that brother stood his ground for what he believed in. So whatever your belief is, is your belief. That's not what matters here. What matters is Kyrie Irving's courage. Kyrie Irving just being the man that he's growing into and really following through with what he said he was gonna follow through. So much kudos to Kyrie on that. Much respect. And I think, you know, when looking at him returning for the Nets, Obviously a big deal. Number one, you can get more continuity in playing more games. You get more familiarity with each other and coming down the stretch, I think that's very important. Number two is we're headed into the playoffs and one game can change a series. And I don't think people really understand that, but one game can shift an entire series. And so all of a sudden there's, you know, all of a sudden there's two, All of a sudden there's 2 home games and 2 road games in the beginning of a 7-game series and you miss 2 of those games. All it takes is for one of those games to get away from you and you can, you know, lose total control of a series. And so I think, you know, that's obviously going to help Kyrie and I mean, and the Brooklyn Nets, Kyrie, KD, and the Brooklyn Nets. You know, just having Kyrie there full-time. I think it was absolutely ridiculous that this even went this long when they start rolling back the mandates for all others weeks ago. I mean, one of the craziest things ever to— a guy can go sit in the stands and watch the game, but he can't play in the game. Didn't really make sense to me, but I'm happy that at least Kyrie and other entertainers has gotten through that. They can continue to move forward. Yeah. With number one, trying to master their craft because that is always a constant battle when doing what you do at the level that we do it at. Trying to chase the goals that his team put out there at the beginning of the year that they wanna chase. And so it's great to see Kyrie back on the floor in a full-time capacity. I think it's well deserved. It should have been that way. And now, you know, kudos to the, to the mayor of New York City as well for getting around to that and making it right. Yeah. Because again, if that's not going to be the rules for everyone else, then it can't be the rules for Kyrie. Like that's totally unfair. So that was great to see. Now we'll, you know, the, the Eastern Conference has gotten really tight and really tough. So, you know, we'll see, we'll see how that plays out. I, I think Brooklyn is currently in the 8th spot, if I'm not mistaken, 7th or 8th spot in the play-in game. And so, I, I think for the most part, they'll probably end up in the play-in game unless one of the teams in front of them drop a few that they're not supposed to drop over the course of, of the next couple weeks. So we'll see how that turns out. But one thing we know for certain is that Kyrie's return to home games is only going to help the Brooklyn Nets over the course of the long run. And hey man, I'm always in favor of every team being at full strength and putting the product out there that they, that they thought they'd have on the court when they assembled that team in the summertime. So, and moving on from that, the news of the weekend, Will Smith and Chris Rock. I know everyone has their opinions on this topic. And to be 100% honest with you, I waited a couple days to form an opinion because there's so many things like being thrown out at you. You don't really know the full details. For instance, when it first happened, everybody like, yo, is this staged? Like— Yeah. Is it not staged? And so initially I'm just sitting there like, no chance this is staged. The Oscars won't sell that. Like that's just not what the Oscars sell. That's not what this is. So I don't think there's, I think there's a 0% chance that it was staged. On an evening like it was for Will Smith, who I think we all kind of knew Will Smith would take home the Oscar for best male actor in a leading role or whatever the— I'm not sure what the exact title of it was, the award that he won. But we know, I mean, I think we all had a sense that Will Smith was going to get his first Oscar off that role. I don't think there's any reason for Will Smith to participate in a staged slap Chris Rock to take away from what was probably one of the most incredible nights and definitely the most incredible honor of his career. He's going to go stage slapping someone to take away from that moment? I don't think so. I think his emotions got the best of him. If you think that his emotions got the best of him, because the reality is, number one, there are so many people that does not have a wife, that doesn't have a fiancée, that doesn't have a girlfriend,— or that doesn't have a husband, that doesn't have a boyfriend, that doesn't have a fiancé, saying, oh, that's ridiculous and you shouldn't have done that. But you also don't know how it feels to share in someone's pain. And so the reality is, was it a funny joke? With no context, okay, yeah, it's a funny joke. But guess who did have context? Jada had context. Guess who did have context? Will had context. Guess who did have context? Jada. All of those that knew and saw Jada's announcement a little while back that she had alopecia, those people did have context. Initially, if I'm not mistaken, Will Smith laughed at the joke as well. But then to look and turn and see the, the pain on your wife's face. See, no one knows how many times that she's cried about cutting her hair. One thing I am certain of is— Yeah. Especially as a, I think women in general, but I know for certain I can speak of Black women who, you know, I'm married to a Black woman, I was raised by a Black woman. Black women don't just wanna cut their hair off. Like very seldomly does a Black woman just want to shave their head bald. Normally there is something that's going on. I'll be 100% honest. I'm one of the biggest fans of the movie "Set It Off." One of my favorite movies. I remember when Jada shaved her hair and set it off. I've always just taken it as like a fashion thing. Like Jada does what the hell she wants. It's Jada Pinkett Smith. Like she does what she wants when it comes to look and when it comes to fashion. And she wear, she wears it so well to where I always thought it was just a fashion thing. So I actually had no idea that she had alopecia until that happened and everyone starts saying, oh, well she announced that she had alopecia. I actually missed that. Yeah. Because again, she wears it well. So I just thought that's something like, oh, she's going back to that look. But in learning of the condition and understanding, I'm certain that she's had countless of nights and countless of times crying about that, weeping, sobbing, hurt about the conditions that she's dealing with. Will has lived that. Mm-hmm. He's lived that, he's listened to those cries. He's come to her, he's come in as a security blanket and comforted her in all of the sobbing and crying and things that she's had to endure since finding out that information. And then most importantly, he looked to the side and he saw his wife in pain in front of everybody, not only everybody in the room, but everybody in the world who's watching. So what do you do? Do you just sit idle or do you show her, I got your back? Or do you stand up for her because she's hurt? I don't condone violence. I don't condone violence at all. I don't condone Will Smith going up there to slap Chris Rock. Number one, as a Black man versus a Black man, I personally don't wanna see it. But then also just in understanding that like violence usually doesn't end well, no matter in what shape or form it is, no matter who's carrying out the violence, it normally just doesn't end well. The way it ended in that situation is one of the best situations we ever see that, ways that we see that in. And so, no, I 100% don't condone violence. I 100% don't condone Will Smith going up there, but I 100% feel where Will Smith was coming from. Because as a protector, as a provider, as the man, the rock for your wife, as the person she turns to when everything is going wrong, you're stuck right, like right there, there's a split-second decision for you to make in order to help make her feel good. Was that the right decision to make? I don't know. That's neither here nor there. The reality is, is there's a split-second decision that you have to make in order to try to help her feel better. Now there's several that you could have made, but what Will did was one of 'em. I have nothing but respect for him for standing up for his wife. I think he could have handled it totally better. I think we all can handle things totally better. I'm not canceling Will Smith. I'm not off Will Smith because he slapped someone. The reality is, is we all make mistakes and we live in this world that everyone wants to punish others for their mistakes. But they want grace when they have their own mistakes. We live in a very hypocritical world that wants to cancel someone who worked their ass off to get to a position because they make a mistake. Be very careful where this is going and where this has gone already and where it continues to go, that people can't make mistakes. 'Cause one thing is for certain, and one thing that will never leave this world is mistakes. People will always make mistakes. And so at some point, cancel culture, you need to find it within yourself to realize that people are going to make mistakes, that you've made mistakes. Maybe your mistakes aren't in front of the world because you don't have that platform, but shit happens. And— It happened that night. And guess what? Shit's gonna happen again. Not necessarily that, but it happens. And so I respect Will. I'm a big fan of Will. Big fan of Chris Rock as well. I respect both of them. But you never wanna be the guy that hits the funny guy. I agree with that. In joking on someone and making someone the butt of your joke, that is always the risk that you take is that you don't know how someone is gonna respond. Whether someone respond verbally and like verbally assault you, whether someone responds and physically assaults you, whether someone take it personal and never wanna speak to you again. You don't know how someone's going to receive what you say. So when that is the case, you have to be able to take out what you dish out. You have to be able to take back what you dish out. Chris Rock dished something out and there was something that came back from that. There was a reaction to that. Every action has a reaction. We learned that years ago. And so was Will Smith right for what he did? I can't necessarily say Will Smith was right for slapping him. But in any way, shape, or form, whether you believe in God or not, or anything past that, you protect your wife at all costs. No matter what, you protect your wife. And so I say kudos to Will for protecting your wife. Like I said, should you have gone up there and slapped the man? Probably not. I don't agree with going up there and slap him. But I do agree with protecting your wife. And if that's the way that he felt he needed to do that, that is his business. You know why? Because that man make his own money, which means he makes his own decisions. That's his business. That ain't really on me to decide if that was the right method to go about it. I disagree with it. But just because I disagree or you disagree don't mean he was wrong. That may be what he felt he needed to do to protect his wife. Mm-hmm. And who are you to tell a man how to protect their wife? You can't, 'cause it's not your wife to protect. So like I said, I got nothing but love and respect for Will Smith. Bad moment, move on from it. Congratulations on the Oscar. Well deserved. Probably was deserved long ago, but you got it. You're here. Thank you. Congratulations, Will. Sucks that that moment happened, but we all make mistakes. We move forward. And that's all you can do. He apologized. I really respected him apologizing that night and not apologizing to Chris Rock. And the reason being is he hadn't even had time to really process what was going on. And to go up there and apologize to Chris Rock right away because that's what people wanted to hear, I don't roll like that. I disagree with that 100%. So I totally respect him going up there and apologizing to the Academy, apologizing to all the nominees that were nominated with him as well, and not apologizing to Chris Rock. I respect that the next day he did apologize to Chris Rock. 'Cause now I've had time to gather myself. I've had time to think about my actions. I've had time to be remorseful or not. You know, do I feel there's a need to be remorseful towards Chris Rock or not? He had the time to process all of that. And again, I say kudos to Will for not just going up there and saying, "I apologize to Chris Rock," because that's what everyone else thought he should have done. 'Cause then that's false and that's just feeding into what people want you to feed into. And so I thought that was incredible. And like I said, much, much respect to Will. Yeah. And much respect to Chris Rock as well. You're carrying out your job. You doing what you do. That normally doesn't happen, but sometimes things spill over and that's what takes place. So that's that. Like I said up top, this is the end of today's episode. We will continue testing this out for a couple weeks. Like I said, we would love to hear your opinion and what you think about the way we're going to go about doing this pod over the next couple weeks as we, as we carry out this trial. And make sure you tune in to our guest show this week. Would like to share the guest with you, but I'm gonna hold that one tight. Tune in, we'll be dropping a teaser later this week. Make sure you check it out. Draymond Green Show, the new format. But from this one, this week, it's a wrap. Peace. Peace.