Draymond hilariously remembers badmouthing Kobe as a rookie originally appeared in NBC Sports Bay Area
Draymond Verde is notoriously known as one of the NBA’s biggest trash talkers, but the Warriors forward still learned a hard lesson from a legend during his first professional season.
In an interview on “Jimmy Kimmel live!,” Green shared a hilarious story about trying to get teammates Steph Curry and Klay Thompson to participate in their pranks on opponents, an invitation the Splash Brothers quickly declined.
“I remember walking into the locker room on the first day, I’m sitting next to Steph [Curry] and Klay [Thompson], and I’m like, ‘Yeah, let’s talk bad about everyone!’ Green told Kimmel. “They said, ‘You’re on your own, we don’t really do this.’ I thought, ‘You guys better talk bad to me or we’re going to have a problem.’
Green went on to recap his first NBA encounter with Kobe Bryant Hall of Famewith the Los Angeles Lakers legend immune to the Warriors forward’s attempt to engage in trash talk.
“So I go out, being the dumb newbie that I am, and try to talk bad about Kobe Bryant,” Green explained to Kimmel. “Look, I come into the game, I probably played 24 seconds in that game. I enter the game for a defensive stop to take us to overtime in regulation time. … Then he shot for the ball, and it was just me and Kobe in hand. And I blocked it, I started to sit down. We know what Kobe is going to do, disappearing over his left shoulder. .
“I said yes! Come on baby, let’s go to overtime.’ He said, ‘Come on, boy, this has nothing to do with you, I just lost it.’ Then you bring him back like, ‘Yeah, you know I locked it!’ Meanwhile, he just walks away looking like, “Whatever.”
“It hurts, it really hurts.”
Green then revealed how much he appreciated the opportunity to face Bryant, before hilariously detailing how the Hall of Famer got the best of him in the mind games in which he typically comes out on top.
“It was the first time I played against Kobe, before that game I lost all my stuff before the game because I watched the whole warm-up before the game, impressed,” Green told Kimmel. “And then we have that moment, and it leaves me feeling like crap.”
Green and Bryant would end up facing each other eight times in their NBA careers, with Golden State emerging victorious in five of those games. Although Green continued to be one of the most vocal players on the court during his decorated career with the Warriors, it’s safe to say he never forgot his welcome-to-the-league moment courtesy of Bryant.
