{"id":658830,"date":"2026-05-09T01:15:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T01:15:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/658830\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T01:15:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T01:15:10","slug":"charles-barkley-refuses-to-punch-down-on-draymond-green-were-not-on-the-same-level","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/658830\/","title":{"rendered":"Charles Barkley refuses to \u2018punch down\u2019 on Draymond Green: \u2018We\u2019re not on the same level\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Draymond Green<\/a> can say whatever he wants about Charles Barkley\u2019s career, but everyone knows they\u2019re on different levels as players and broadcasters.<\/p>\n

Green filled in for Shaquille O\u2019Neal on Wednesday night on\u00a0Inside the NBA. And prior to ESPN\u2019s broadcast of Game 2 between the Philadelphia 76ers<\/a> and New York Knicks<\/a>, the show discussed Green\u2019s NBA future, with Barkley chiming in to bluntly state the Golden State Warriors<\/a>\u2019 run as a title contender is over. And Green took that personally.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI think the goal is just to not look like you in the Houston Rockets<\/a> uniform,\u201d\u00a0Green fired back<\/a>, referring to the end of Barkley\u2019s career. \u201cIs ultimately the goal for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Friday morning, Barkley joined Dan Bickley and Vince Marotta on their Arizona Sports 98.7 morning show, where he was asked about the awkward exchange. And Barkley brushed the joke off, seeming very comfortable with any comparison anyone wants to make about his career vs. Green\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never punch down. Draymond\u2019s a good player. We\u2019re not on the same level,\u201d Barkley said. \u201cI can hear it, but I don\u2019t have to respond every time somebody says something about me. Draymond\u2019s a really good player; he\u2019s had a hell of a career, but we\u2019re not on the same level.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI\u2019m never gonna be sensitive. I\u2019ve taken some shots, but I\u2019ve never been personal with guys. That\u2019s one thing I feel very confident about. When I say something about a guy, it\u2019s never personal. But hey, I\u2019m a big boy.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green\u2019s attempt at taking a shot at Barkley, however, felt personal. He may have intended for the quip to fit the often-good-natured ribbing that occurs between Barkley and Shaq on Inside the NBA, but the joke fell short. It was widely criticized by those who felt it was an unnecessary shot at Barkley\u2019s career. More importantly, it wasn\u2019t factual.<\/p>\n

Barkley was an All-Star in his first season with the Houston Rockets and surpassed Clyde Drexler as the second-most valuable player on a team that reached the conference finals. By the end of his tenure in Houston, Barkley was a shell of the MVP-caliber player he once was. But his averages of 15 points and 10 rebounds per game still exceeded Green\u2019s most productive season. Which is why Barkley didn\u2019t really have to punch back at Green; he let the court of public opinion do it for him.<\/p>\n

The post Charles Barkley refuses to \u2018punch down\u2019 on Draymond Green: \u2018We\u2019re not on the same level\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Awful Announcing<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Draymond Green can say whatever he wants about Charles Barkley\u2019s career, but everyone knows they\u2019re on different levels…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":658831,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,24057,7901,5552,7220,24059,1666,9688,14232,85],"class_list":["post-658830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-charles-barkley","tag-draymond-green","tag-golden-state-warriors","tag-houston-rockets","tag-inside-the-nba","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-philadelphia-76ers","tag-shaquille-oneal","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=658830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/658830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/658831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=658830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=658830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=658830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}