Two-time NBA champion Kevin Durant is generally held in high regard for his sharp shooting skills.
Despite leading the league in scoring four times throughout his prolific career, Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green recently asserted that Durant should not be considered the NBA’s best scorer.
At one point during a recent edition of the “Draymond Green Show,” the Warriors star began comparing Durant to Dallas Mavericks star Kyrie Irving.
Green played alongside Durant in Northern California for three seasons. While Green and Durant appeared to get along enough to win a pair of championships together, the underlying rift between them seems to have grown in recent years.
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Shortly after Green’s physical altercation with Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkic, Durant publicly shared his hope that Green would eventually seek the “help he needs.”
“That was insane to see,” Durant said in December. “Glad Nurk is all right. Never seen that before in a basketball court in an NBA game. I hope Draymond gets the help he needs. It’s been incident after incident. I know Draymond, and that’s not… he hasn’t been that way when I was around him and coming into the league. Hopefully, he gets the help he needs to get back on the court and put all this stuff behind him.”
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Green took issue with Durant’s comments and decided to fire back during a January edition of his podcast.
“I’ll tell you, it really p—ed me off when Kevin Durant said, ‘He wasn’t like that when I was around. I hope he gets the help he needs,'” Green said at the time.
Green attempted to clarify his most recent assessment of Durant by arguing he was being complimentary of the Suns star.
“The world will take this in like the wrong way and try to make it something it’s not, when it’s actually a compliment. … I said Kyrie Irving is the scorer that the world thinks of Kevin Durant. What I meant by that was there are some things at times that you can do to Kevin to make it a little tougher on him.
“Why? Because he’s seven feet, and he handles the ball a lot. There are times because he’s seven feet, if you time it right, you can pressure up and press up into Kevin and make things a little bit tougher. He has to turn his back or something, just get him out of rhythm a little bit.”
Green then offered a somewhat convoluted rationale behind why he believes Irving’s skillset presents such an issue for opposing teams.
“Kyrie Irving, you can’t do anything to make it hard on him,” Green asserted. “You can’t make the game tough for Kyrie. He’s one of the best three-point shooters, he’s one of the best mid-rangers, if not arguably the best, he’s arguably the best finisher in the NBA.
“He has floaters with either hand, he can finish with either hand at the rim, Kyrie can also switch and shoot a mid-range jump shot with his left hand… There’s actually nothing you can do to stop Kyrie from scoring. You just try to do all you can to make him take a tough shot and then you gotta live with the results.”
The NBA reinstated Green in January. He inked a four-year contract extension with the Warriors in late June. He was named the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2017 and has long been considered a key piece of the Warriors’ dynasty that produced four NBA titles.
Green lost just shy of $2 million in wages while he served the suspension, according to ESPN.
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