Warriors All-Star Draymond Green is the latest player to speak out about the Knicks feud with Charles Oakley, and while many voiced their opinions on social media (like LeBron and Dwyane Wade), Green went more longform in speaking his feelings about the situation.
Green, on his Uninterrupted podcast, spoke at length about his feelings towards James Dolan’s handling of the situation and what Green felt is a “slave master mentality” from Dolan in getting upset when Oakley, who was long a vocal and physical antagonizer with the Knicks, began speaking on issues he had with the organization.
“If I’m not mistaken, Dolan was owning that team when [Oakley] was playing,” Green said. “It wasn’t a problem when he was speaking out then. It wasn’t a problem when he was protecting their superstars then. If it wasn’t a problem then when he was doing it for y’all, why is it all of a sudden a problem now when he speaks out on something he don’t like? And now you want to disown him from your entire organization. That’s a slave mentality.
“You doing it for me, it’s all good. But now you doing it against me…you speaking out against my organization, it’s not good anymore? That’s a slave mentality. A slave master mentality. That’s ridiculous. It was all fine and dandy when he was laying people out, taking fines and all this stuff for your organization. But now all of a sudden when he say something that he feels, it’s a problem. I disagree with that.”
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Green then went on to voice his objections to Dolan and the Knicks statements about wanting Oakley to “get help” and implying implicitly and stating explicitly that they felt Oakley had problems anger and alcohol.
“How as an organization can you come out and say ‘we hope he get help.’ That’s ridiculous, though. You’re implying one of two to three things. Number one, as they said, ‘he has an anger problem.’ Just because he’s pissed off don’t mean he’s got an anger problem. … Maybe he’s a no bullsh*t type of guy. … Say if they do know, in his research that they did, that Oak has an anger problem. That’s not something that you say to the world. That’s not classy at all. … It’s not OK for you to go say to the world as a multibillion dollar organization. … He said, ‘he probably has an alcohol problem.’ Who are you to say someone probably have an alcohol problem. How can you even pin that on someone? … That’s grimy.”
Green is one of the league’s most outspoken players, and it’s not surprising that he is the one to go on record blasting Dolan and the Knicks as aggressively as he did. His thoughts on Dolan’s mentality towards Oakley as a former player echoed that of Dwyane Wade, who warned players that organizations will stop caring about you once you’re no longer helping them.
Green’s comments about Oakley being a vocal player and an enforcer getting kicked to the curb seems to come from a bit of a personal space. Green, who is the outspoken, vocal leader and physical enforcer on the Warriors, may see a bit of himself in this Oakley situation and wonder if in the future he could find himself being shunned by an organization for speaking his mind about the team.
(h/t NY Daily News)
