It was a disappointing night on Wednesday for the Golden State Warriors, who lost to the Boston Celtics and are now down 2-1 in the 2022 NBA Finals.
Draymond Green certainly had a night to forget, finishing the game with only two points and fouling out late into the fourth quarter.
He played a small role in the game itself, but the headlines surrounding Green started before the game even began. The outspoken NBA star has been in news for his comments regarding the physicality of the 1980s and 90s era of basketball.
He said on Tuesday that besides a few enforcers in that era like Bill Laimbeer and Rick Mahorn, the rest of the players in that era were “getting bullied.”
“Y’all were getting bullied”
Draymond has a message for those who glorify the physicality of basketball in the 1980s and ‘90s 😂 pic.twitter.com/BRxU5Z0SS9
— Warriors on NBCS (@NBCSWarriors) June 7, 2022
Ahead of Thursday’s game, former NBA Finals MVP for the Boston Celtics Cedric Maxwell discussed Green’s comments on his era of basketball, and seemed to take great exception to his take that he and others were “bullied.”
“I see Draymond behind me. Don’t act like if he played in the 80s he wouldn’t have been knocked out,” said Maxwell. “The reason that he is making $30 million is because he got on my shoulders and somebody else’s shoulders. Don’t be disrespectful.
“I’ll say this, there have only been 32 Finals MVPs, and dammit I’m one of them.”
Former Finals MVP Cedric Maxwell responds to Draymond Green’s comments about the physicality of the NBA in the ’80s and ’90s 👀 pic.twitter.com/9xLlbRrBjN
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) June 9, 2022
This goes back to the romanticization of the 80s and 90s era of basketball that many current era players are against.
Former NBA player and current ESPN analyst JJ Redick discussed this Wednesday on ESPN’s Get Up, where he said that people take away from the current era of basketball due to comparing it to the nostalgia of the 80s and 90s.
Maxwell was a good role player on some great Celtics teams of the past, but Green has undoubtedly done more in his career than Maxwell, regardless of the era that they played in.
Green absolutely could have survived in that era and may have brought some skills that would have made his game even better. Maxwell or anyone else believing otherwise is proving Redick’s point of the nostalgia of that era taking away from players today.
