By Jonathan Gaus

Love him or hate him but you MUST pay attention to Draymond Green…and he loves it that way! With the promotional prowess of a carnival barker and the truth-spittin’ braggadocio of an oversized Drake, Green has ingeniously positioned himself as the heir apparent to Charles Barkley.  What makes Green’s recent Q-rating surge so laudable is that this four-time World Champion hasn’t even been playing his best basketball of late. In fact, if you are even a nominal NBA fan you’d have to admit that Green’s last couple of seasons have been hot and cold at best.  But, that’s only his on-court performance. Behind the microphone or armed with his twitter keyboard Draymond has been absolute fire!  Having a front-row seat to Green’s recent twitter beef with Memphis star Ja Morant you get the feeling that Green could take on the entire Grizzly squad with half his caustic wit tied behind his back.

Green’s genius in positioning himself as a cutting-edge media presence can really be boiled down into three simple rules:

Own Your Stuff!  After a bad game Draymond rarely deflects or points veiled fingers at anyone besides himself. If he sucked in a game, he’ll be the first to say, “I sucked tonight!”  This kind of transparent, self-effacing ownership of a poor performance has been incredibly refreshing in a league full of white noise post-game press conferences.  When Green steps out front to be his own worst critic he deflates the attacks of his naysayers and keeps their barbs from getting much traction.  In the current media climate where blaming the other guy, the other side or the other party has become the nauseating norm, Green’s ownership of his own stuff has made his voice stand out.

Cut Out the Middle Man.  The player empowerment movement has certainly sent shock waves through the NBA establishment, now Green has taken this a step further and turned traditional media access on its head.  For decades, the NBA postgame dog and pony show has been to trot out a couple players from each team so that the press could get first dibs on any newsworthy quotes and then go and publish their stories and get paid.  Like any savvy businessman Draymond has now simply cut out the middleman.  Instead of continuing to give away his post-game opinions for free, Green now heads right to his own microphone on his own podcast to broadcast his personal insights about the game to his growing number of listeners and now he’s the one getting paid.  To say that Green has been an industry disruptor is like saying Chet Holmgren is skinny. All during the recent NBA Finals one of the hottest takes on all of the studio shows and podcasts was Draymond’s trailblazing side-step of the traditional media channels.  Witnessing how Green has now monetized his post-game opinions, many other athletes are sure to follow in his size fifteen footsteps.

Be Yourself. One of the most captivating things about Draymond Green is that he’s totally comfortable in his own skin and he has no filter.  Even when he speaks on a somewhat caustic or previously taboo subject, your attention is drawn to his comments in the same way your attention is drawn to an auto accident as you slowly drive by.  You may not agree with him but you sure as heck want to see the pile-up and damage that he causes.  For years it’s been commonly accepted that the only three people in the media who are cancel-proof are Barkley, Howard Stern and Joe Rogan, well you can pretty much add Draymond Green to that list. Green has been very vocal with his strong feelings about everything from Donald Trump, to racism to NBA economics and all the while his media footprint continues to grow. 

With his natural feel for all things media while at the same time tapping into the skills he gleaned as a communications major at Michigan State University, Green’s rise in media could not be coming at a better time.  His skills on the court are being eroded away by the cruel parents of every professional athlete, Father Time and Mother Nature. At the same time, TNT’s flagship NBA postgame show is eager to bid on Green’s full-time services. For the past few seasons Green has joined the crew at TNT in a limited basis as his NBA schedule has allowed.  In his guest appearances Green has had no problem fitting in and holding his own with the likes of Shaq, Charles, Kenny and Ernie. 

Last week’s NBA Finals seemed to be a microcosm of all things that make Draymond Green so polarizing and at the same time so infuriatingly attractive.  As the Golden State Warriors were battling the Celtics in game three in Boston, the Celtic fans crassly and loudly chanted “F _ _ _  you Draymond!”  This ongoing chorus of hate elicited nothing more than a million dollar smile from Green who seemed to gain energy from all of the vitriol. The Warriors returned to Boston for Game 6 and easily finished off the Celtics and then danced all over their leprechaun-ladened court. Of course, Draymond had his best game of the series in that final game serving notice to the Boston fans and to the rest of us that he is just getting started!

^{This article is the original work and intellectual property of Jonathan Gaus and can only be reprinted and/or published with permission.}