Charles Barkley: “is Draymond as annoying all day long as he is on TV?”
Kevin Durant “He’s just downstairs you can go ask him…”
Barkley…… pic.twitter.com/U1xU2iNLfT— gifdsports (@gifdsports) May 21, 2018
After annoying the Warriors locker room three weeks ago when he said he wanted to punch Draymond Green in the face, Charles Barkley prodded Kevin Durant once again Sunday night.
Durant joined TNT’s Inside the NBA segment after Golden State’s 126-85 win over the Houston Rockets in Game 3. Barkley, sitting across the desk from Durant, brought up Green.
“Is Draymond Green as annoying in person as he is on television?” Barkley said.
“You should go talk to him,” Durant said. “He’s downstairs.”
Barkley, who seemingly always has something to say, went silent. Durant and Shaquille O’Neal kept jabbing Barkley.
“He won’t do it,” O’Neal said. “He’s going to apologize.”
All of this circles back to Barkley’s comment that he wanted ‘somebody to punch him in the face,’ referring to Green, during Game 2 of the Western Conference Semifinals. That night, after Golden State’s 121-116 over New Orleans, Green retorted.
“I think a lot of guys talk on TV, stand behind a microphone and TV screen,” Green said. “The fact of the matter is if you feel that strongly about something — he’s seen me a million times — if you feel that strongly about it then punch me in my face when you see me.”
Barkley apologized the next morning during an ESPN radio appearance, saying ‘I want to be man enough to apologize because I was 100 percent wrong.”
Neither Durant nor Stephen Curry bought Barkley’s apology. It seemed they had just as much of a problem with the way Barkley jabbed Green, choosing to do so on national television, than what he actually said.
So, with Barkley in Oracle Arena Sunday night, he chose to do the same thing.