Draymond Green’s game has drawn comparisons to that of Hall of Famer Charles Barkley, but Green doesn’t agree one bit.
When asked about the comparison between his loud, in-your-face, trash-talk heavy game and Barkley’s, the Golden State Warriors All-Star power forward had a stern response.
“Hell no,” Green said, per ESPN’s Chris Haynes. “I’m the modern-day Draymond Green. F— no.”
While there are some similarities between Green and the current TNT analyst, the 27-year-old credits those aspects of his game to where he came from, not to Barkley.
“(Chuck) told y’all in ’90-what that he wasn’t your kid’s role model anyway. … So there you have it,” Green said. “He wasn’t my role model. I grew up in Saginaw, Mich. … That’s what you do, you talk, you talk junk during basketball. That’s how I was raised. I was raised in a family like that, so I didn’t need a Charles Barkley to influence me.”
Green does admit that he’s tried to add some aspects of Barkley’s game to his own, but that doesn’t mean he admired “The Round Mound of Rebound.”
“I wasn’t a Charles Barkley fan growing up,” Green said. “No disrespect to Chuck. He’s a great player, but as I got older, I watched his game because I knew he was undersized and the things that he could do, I tried to add some of that stuff to my game. But nah, he didn’t influence me at all.”
Green and the Warriors are preparing to play the Utah Jazz in the NBA’s Western Conference semifinals.
Thumbnail photo via Kelley L Cox/USA TODAY Sports Images
