Draymond Green Talking Shit To Jae Crowder About Choking Away A Title Is A Little Strange Considering 2016 Exists
Big matchup out West last night between the Suns and Warriors in a game that very much lived up to the hype outside of the last few seconds where it became a FT shooting contest. Ultimately the Suns did what the Suns do which is let CP3 and Booker carry you in the clutch and we saw why this is the best clutch team in basketball. Chris Paul just gets the job done
It was their 9th win in a row and they tied their franchise wins record at 62. None of this is really new information, we know the Suns are the best team in basketball. So instead I would like to focus on the little Jae/Draymond incident. Is it right to call it an incident? Maybe not, but I didn't want to call it an altercation because all they really did was talk some shit to each other.
For me, this was tough. I love Jae Crowder. Always have and always will. I love that he's tough as hell and has worked and developed into a legit starting caliber NBA player. He's a guy who is not afraid of any smoke no matter who the player is. He's certainly not one to run away from any sort of confrontation. Then on the other side, there's Draymond. I am of the camp where I love when Draymond talks shit because he's one of the rare players that immediately goes out and backs it up. Is it annoying? Sure. But that's who he's always been and he has the hardware to back it up. However, I do have some questions about his shit talking approach
I've never been to Buckhead so I can't speak to that portion of his shit talking, but why is he talking to Crowder about choking in the Finals? At first I wasn't sure what Draymond was talking about, but then I realized Crowder only took 1 3PA in the 4th last night and it became pretty clear what Draymond was referencing. It's true, the Suns did choke. Up 2-0, they lost 4 straight. In Game 3, Crowder went 6-7 (6-7). In Game 4, he went 3-10 (3-9), but only took 1 FGA in the 4th. In Game 5 of that series, Crowder shot 4-7 (2-4) in the 123-119 loss. He didn't take a FGA in the 4th quarter of that game. In Game 6, things were a little different. Jae went 4-11 (2-9) and 0-3 in the fourth quarter. He did miss a 3PA with 2:20 left with the Suns down 8. Before that, his 3PA misses came early in the fourth with the game still close. So basically, I'm not sure the reason for the Suns losing that Finals was Jae Crowder "choking" per se.
Here's really the only small issue I have with this. Draymond cannot be clowning someone for choking away an NBA Finals when 2016 also exists. You know, when the Warriors blew a 3-1 lead as a 73-9 team to lose a title. There has never been a bigger choke in NBA History than that. I will say, Draymond was a monster in that Game 7 with 32/15/9 on 73/75% splits with 6 3PM, but his team still choked. His own actions in that series helped fuel the choke job. So weirdl, this was more a self own of Draymond than shit talking to Crowder in my opinion. If he wanted to talk shit to someone about choking that Finals, why not go to Booker who was 8-22 (0-7) in that Game 6?
On some level, I do respect Draymond for not really giving a shit about self awareness and simply being committed to the shit talking game no matter how silly it may make him look. You go to war for a guy like that. As I said, I have no problem with Draymond talking shit because he tends to back it up and I have no problem with Jae not backing down because that's who he is. If anything I would like even more of it moving forward.
I will say this though, I certainly wouldn't hate a Suns/Warriors series. Not just because of the quality of basketball each side plays, but the fact that clearly there's some beef there.
P.S.
Goes without saying this is what most of us thought of right?
