While Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green—and his mom—were bummed after he wasn’t selected as a starter for this year’s NBA All-Star Game, there was some silver lining today when he found out that he was named a reserve for the Western Conference squad.
Making his first All-Star Game after being a second round pick a few years ago, Green talked to the TNT crew tonight about how he found out, telling them that he almost cried upon hearing the news, but held back for the best reason ever:
“Raymond Ridder, the head of our PR department, actually set me up. He told me, ‘We need you to do this interview for CSN Bay Area. Just come in about 1:30 to do the interview.’ I sat down to do the interview, and once I started doing the interview, I heard my mom’s voice. So I thought I was tripping. But I’m like, ‘Ma?’ And she’s like, ‘Day Day! Day Day! Day Day!’ And I’m like, ‘Ma?’ And she told me then, ‘You’re an All-Star.’
“I almost started crying, but I knew I was on TV, and I didn’t want them to kill me on Instagram, make me the crying face instead of Jordan Hall of Fame.”
You’ve got to love Dray’s honesty there, knowing how the popular MJ meme has, seemingly, found its way into sports culture EVERY FUCKING TIME a sports team loses a big game or messes up.
Green followed that up with another classic reply, too, when he was asked whether or not he thinks he’ll airball a shot during the All-Star Game, saying:
“Knowing myself, I’m gonna say 80 percent. It’s 80 percent likely that I’m gonna shoot an airball and it’s gonna be really bad. If I was you, I would definitely take the over.”
The guy leads the league in triple-doubles this year on the best team in the league, and won a title last season, so it’s pretty funny to think that he believes he’ll choke during a glorified exhibition game.
Here’s the entire interview with TNT.
.@Money23Green joined the crew after getting the news he was heading to @NBAAllStar! #NBAAllStarTO https://t.co/7B0pFOjOQO
— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) January 29, 2016
Keep doing you, Draymond, because it’s clearly working well.