Believe it or not, folks, Udonis Haslem is still in the NBA. Yes, seriously. He’s there. Tucked away in the Miami Heat bench.
Yes, that’s him you’ve seen on the sideline. But, no, he is not a coach or any sort of assistant…technically speaking. He’s still a player. He earns a players salary and even checks in games sometimes for the Heat — 13 times so far this year, which is the most for him since 2017!
He’s been there the entire time through this awful series watching every single minute of it along with us. And, honestly, I’m unsure if a lot of people knew that.
How else would you explain everyone being caught off guard by Haslem having something to say about Draymond Green picking the Boston Celtics to make the NBA Finals over the Heat?
He was heated, y’all. Pun definitely not intended but, also, it’s a pretty good pun.
Anyway, after the Warriors advanced to the Finals and Draymond Green made his way to the NBA on TNT set, Shaq asked Green who he thought they’d be playing. And, of course, Green initially said they could see both teams and he didn’t know how it’d go initially.
But Shaq pushed him on it over and over and over again. And Draymond told the crew who he thought they’d play, and that was the Celtics.
"We're gonna play Boston."
Draymond Green believes the Warriors will face the Celtics in the 2022 NBA Finals 🏆pic.twitter.com/eZqJGOzC6V
— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPointsApp) May 27, 2022
It’s reasonable for Green to feel that way. The Heat had been pretty awful leading into the game. But it was another thing for him to vocalize it. That’s a pretty big no-no in NBA circles, and the Heat had the right to be upset about it.
But absolutely no one expected Udonis Haslem to be the vocal leader on that train. He was letting Green have it. He spoke to Yahoo! Sports’ Chris Haynes about it.
“Draymond broke the code. You ain’t supposed to say some [expletive] like that. That’s disrespectful.”
Then, after the Heat actually won game 6, he also popped up by the ESPN broadcast booth to tell Draymond thanks. In a sarcastic way, of course.
"Tell Draymond thank you."
Heat took Dray's words personally 🔥 pic.twitter.com/afirJuO6g2
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) May 28, 2022
He wanted to make sure to thank Green for the extra motivation for his team. Which makes total sense! After all, Green did count the Heat out here.
But NBA fans thought this was hilarious because, well, Haslem doesn’t really play. Yet he’s the guy who seemed to care most about this. At least openly, anyway.
The jokes were flying. Especially because of the whole “broke the code” thing. Again.
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