DRAYMOND Green’s Inside the NBA appearance hasn’t gone down well with stars of the Minnesota Timberwolves.
The Timberwolves boycotted interviews with the TNT show following their Game 4 win over the Dallas Mavericks after comments made by Green, per The Athletic.
Minnesota is out of NBA title contention following a 4-1 series loss to Dallas.
But they had kept the series alive last Tuesday with a hard-fought 105-100 win at American Airlines Center.
No Timberwolves player gave a post-game interview following the win.
Jon Krawczynski and Shams Charania claim in The Athletic that Minnesota decided “no player would appear on TNT’s Inside the NBA postgame show.”
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The report adds the “decision was a sign of support for Rudy Gobert and Karl-Anthony Towns,” after the pair were “subject of derisive and seemingly personal criticism from panelist Draymond Green.”
Green is a four-time NBA champion and currently plays for the Golden State Warriors.
He joined the Inside the NBA crew of Shaquille O’Neal, Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith, and Ernie Johnson for the duration of the Western Conference Finals series.
Green was booed by some Timberwolves fans as he joined the TNT broadcast at Target Center, per Sports Illustrated.
The Warriors forward divided fans with his criticism of Defensive Player of the Year Gobert during the team’s series with the Denver Nuggets.
“The big Frenchman is sitting on that podium, speaking his native language,” Green told the Inside the NBA panel on May 14.
“‘We, we, we need to do this.’ You, you, you need to get a stop.
“It ain’t ‘we.’ Karl-Anthony Towns is actually doing a pretty good job when he’s on Joker, it’s you my man that’s getting cooked.”
Gobert and Green have a personal rivalry that culminated in the Warriors star putting the Frenchman in a chokehold earlier this season.
Green served a five-game ban for the incident.
Inside the NBA’s future remains unclear with the TNT show potentially ending after the 2024-25 season.
NBC looks set to seal a $2.6 billion package to take the NBA TV rights from TNT’s parent company Warner. Bros Discovery, per the Sports Business Journal.
Inside the NBA’s future?
Inside the NBA’s run on TNT Sports is in major doubt due to the NBA’s broadcasting deals.
The Emmy-winning sports show is a fan favorite thanks to the likes of Shaquille O’Neal and Charles Barkley.
But TNT’s broadcast deal with the NBA is up after next season and NBC looks set to take those rights in a $2.6bn deal.
If TNT loses its NBA package, it raises serious questions over the popular Inside the NBA.
One solution could be to recreate the show on another network, which snaps up the NBA rights.
Barkley recently joked on air that the panel has been “busy filling in job applications.”
Following reports of “chaos” behind the scenes, the former NBA champion has urged clarity as quickly as possible.
“It’s people’s lives,” Barkley told The New York Times.
“Not my life. Not Ernie’s life. Not Kenny’s life. Not Shaq’s life.
“But all the people who work here. We probably have 100 people who do work on the show.
“So they’re, like, real people. I’ve seen their kids born, graduate high school, graduate college.”