Even in the age of social media and AAU, players on the Utah Jazz and across the league aren’t always friends. It’s human nature: everyone can’t get along. Particularly in the heat of high-stakes competition.
Utah Jazz star Rudy Gobert and Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green are not strangers to conflict. More specifically, they’re not strangers to conflict with each other. On All-Star weekend, that conflict reared its ugly head.
Draymond Green disassociates with Utah Jazz star
Green was absent from the game due to injury, but that didn’t stop him from getting involved in the proceedings. He participated in a sideline interview with the Inside the NBA crew during the weekend’s main event.
Kenny Smith compared Draymond to both Gobert and NBA legend Dikembe Mutombo. At 6’7, one might expect Draymond to take the comparison as a compliment.
He did not, based on the following exchange.
“You keep mentioning me in the same sentence as him. We are not alike” said Draymond.
Kenny Smith: Who’s not alike?
Draymond Green: Who you keep mentioning me with.
Kenny Smith: You’re not like Mutombo or Rudy Gobert?
Green: I didn’t say Mutombo.
In case that didn’t make his feelings clear, Green went on to clarify that he and Gobert “ain’t nothing alike”.
The rest of the crew enjoyed Draymond’s antics, but they didn’t seem shocked by them either. After all, this was not the first time Green and Gobert had feuded.
Utah Jazz star and Green have history of conflict
When Gobert had a public, emotional reaction to not making the 2018 All-Star team, Draymond took to Twitter to mock him.
Opinions varied on that exchange. Some felt that it was insensitive for Draymond to publicly shame Gobert for expressing himself. Others felt that shedding tears over an All-Star snub was a little excessive.
Either way, it’s clear that the origins of this beef are on the basketball court.
Utah Jazz star feuds with fellow Defensive Player of the Year candidate
Draymond Green and Rudy Gobert are widely regarded as the two best defensive players of their era. They’ve exchanged tweets about who deserved to be the recipient of the Defensive Player of the Year award on more than one occasion.
This may explain why the two stars don’t get along. While they also appear to have notable differences in personality, one similarity in each is competitiveness.
They both deserve that individual recognition on a yearly basis, and the award can only go to one man. That sounds like a recipe for beef.
Rudy Gobert is likely more focused on winning a championship for the Utah Jazz than he is any comparison with Draymond Green. If anything, that’s one more thing the two stars have in common.