Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green is taking his talents to television, but he isn’t retiring just yet — and it’s all thanks to Charles Barkley.
Charles Barkley hasn’t played in the NBA for 22 years, but he still practices an art form he perfected long ago: the finesse of talking trash.
Barkley is often seen combatting Shaq on TNT, but another verbal sparring partner has emerged in recent years in the Warriors’ Draymond Green. When Barkley would strike Green with critiques in his game, Green would offer humorous retorts during press conferences. Now, it seems that all of Green’s words are finally culminating into a unique media deal that makes Green, Barkley, Turner Sports all winners.
According to The Athletic’s Richard Deitsch, “the humorous exchanges led in 2020 to Green’s agent reaching out to Turner Sports executives to pitch Green as someone who could be great on sports television. Green then made multiple appearances on Turner — all well-received — including on-air work during the 2020 Western Conference finals.”
On Jan. 27, Turner Sports announced that Green would join the network in an exclusive, multi-year agreement, all while remaining an active player.
Draymond Green joins Turner Sports in television deal thanks to trash talk with Charles Barkley
For those who are uninitiated in Green’s poetic savagery, one only need to look at how he humiliated Paul Pierce in a way that Pierce could never recover.
“Keep chasing that farewell tour, they don’t love you like that,” Green shouted at Pierce. “You ain’t got that type of love. You thought you was Kobe?”
“One thing about trash talk is it just happens,” Green said when reflecting on that moment.
While Barkley and Shaq’s back and forth is much milder than what was said during their playing days, one of the league’s elite trash talkers can now bring that fierce energy when commenting on how the game is being played.