Draymond Green aspires to be the next Charles Barkley—an NBA hero turned beloved and respected ombudsman for the game.
However, Draymond’s struck too many players in the face to become a hero outside of The Bay but we are witnessing him embark upon his journey to beloved, respected spokesman with his melatonin podcast—where he sits alone in a hotel room, talking to himself for an hour straight of undigestable waste coated in a voice made for the silent pictures paired with the awkward cadence of a man who lied on his resume and 10000% did not expect to be called in for an actual interview.
This week, Draymond has joined the TNT Inside The NBA set, first filling in for Charles Barkley and Shaquille O’Neal, then sitting beside them for Wednesday night’s action.
It sucks.
Nothing more offputting than a guy with zero charm believing he’s the most charming man in the world.
Draymond’s biggest flaw is not understanding how he’s perceived. He speaks as if he’s this lovable guy you’d love to grab a drink with so you can mine his brain for rare knowledge only an NBA champion could possibly know.
No self-awareness in sight.
With a time machine, his podcast could extract Osama Bin Laden’s exact latitude and longitude on September 12th, 2001.
If you ever catch the show’s social media clips, you see a program no one would watch if he weren’t already famous.
He brings his boring, lifeless podcast energy to TNT where he attempts to introduce his 4th-grade sense of humor to repeat the same jokes about Rudy Gobert/Jusuf Nurkic—two guys he attacked this season when they literally didn’t expect it—in between monotone word vomits of basic information to make Draymond sound smarter than he is.
So why is Draymond Green so perfect for Inside The NBA?
Charles Barkley has been open about his concerns about NBC outbidding TNT Sports for NBA’s TV rights going forward.
This may be the final season with the Inside The NBA crew as we know it.
Ernie Johnson has already re-signed with the network so he’ll be with TNT/Warner, regardless of whether or not they air NBA games.
He can host anything.
But we may be witnessing the final days of Barkley, Shaq and Kenny Smith running the best NBA broadcast of all time.
It feels as though Draymond had some sort of handshake agreement with TNT Sports. He’d pop up when the Warriors were eliminated, getting some reps in before being handed the job when he retires from the NBA to wait for Chuck or Kenny to call it quits.
And with the Inside The NBA show ending, this is the perfect time for TNT to continue play-cating Draymond with faux-make up artists running over during commercials, pretending to touch him up and make him believe he’s a valuable member of the team while demonstrating extraordinary, superhuman restraint from covering their noses when Draymond speaks too closely to their faces.
Draymond Green is terrible at this job.
I’d love nothing more than the ability to act as if his guest spots are directly responsible for the death of Inside The NBA. Oh, and maybe the narrative can end his podcast where he sits in front of a white wall in his basement giving his tepid, disposable reactions to post-game press conferences while talking like the teacher asked him the read the next chapter out loud and he’s stalling time, hoping the bell rings before he stumbles through Of Mice And Men in front of the whole class and his crush.
If the end of Inside The NBA means the end of Draymond Green’s media career I will personally donate to NBC’s final NBA TV bid.
Does Draymond Green have an Inside The NBA future? Leave a comment below. Respond on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram. Or shoot me an email at Deadseriousmailbag@gmail.com. Let’s chat, bay-beeeee. Let’s wild speculate who should be the next cast on NBA on NBC.