The Athletic published its inaugural NBA Player poll today and, from the results, one thing is clear: The rest of the league has no love for the Golden State Warriors, especially Draymond Green.
Exploiting a “journalistic loophole” to find out how NBA players really feel about their league colleagues, The Athletic employed 30 beat writers to gather data from anonymous polling during the last two weeks in March. The results will surely carve out an even bigger chip on Draymond Green’s shoulder.
Draymond Green was named Most Overrated Player in the NBA, earning 17 percent of the votes. Also earning votes in this category were: Jimmy Butler, Andrew Wiggins and Karl-Anthony Towns (6.3 percent) and James Harden, Ben Simmons, LeBron James Kyle Lowry (4.2 percent).
Fourteen other players, including Warriors center DeMarcus Cousins and shooting guard Klay Thompson, earned 2.1 percent of the vote.
For this category, only 47 players responded to the question, meaning the sample size would not hold up to scientific standards. However, of those who answered, 17 percent naming Green as the most overrated player is pretty decisive.
In news that would shock no one who has watched a Golden State Warriors’ game, Green was also named Biggest Trash Talker.
Winning 33 percent of the 123 votes cast, Green won this category in a landslide, with Patrick Beverley coming in second (14.5 percent) and Russell Westbrook coming in third (12.2). We know Green has no issue talking trash to his own teammates — mean enough to warrant suspension for conduct detrimental to the team — so the results to this part of the poll seem pretty accurate.
Now that Green knows the other players in the league hate his guts, will he channel this into postseason excellence or reactionary, hot-headed behavior warranting technical fouls and/or suspensions?
