Charles Barkley Apologizes To Draymond Green Even Though He ‘Meant It’

The Warriors took a 2-0 lead on the Pelicans on Tuesday night with a 121-116 win to maintain homecourt advantage and put significant pressure on Anthony Davis and company as the series shifts to New Orleans.

However, despite a competitive game and the return of Steph Curry to the Warriors lineup, much of the talk afterwards was about Charles Barkley’s comments about Draymond Green on TNT during the broadcast. Barkley said he wished someone would “punch him in the face” after Green and Rondo got into a heated argument and were barking at each other.

Green was asked about the comments and said if Barkley feels that way they’ve been in the same room plenty of times and will be again in the future and challenged Barkley to go ahead and “punch me in my face.” It’s not the first time a member of the Inside the NBA crew has gotten into it with a member of the Warriors and most assumed it would drag on as we awaited Barkley’s response.

However, it appears Barkley will try to smooth things over on Wednesday night when the TNT crew is back on the air for Game 2 of Jazz-Rockets. Barkley spoke with Sam Amick of USA Today and said he’s going to apologize to Draymond, although it will be interesting to see how that goes over since he insists he still “meant it.”

“I’m going to apologize to Draymond tonight,” said Barkley, who made the comments during the halftime show of Game 2 between the Warriors and New Orleans in the Western Conference semifinals. “You know listen, I like Draymond. I like Draymond a lot, actually, but I shouldn’t have said that. He’s annoying, but I shouldn’t have said that. So I’m going to apologize to Draymond tonight.

“I saw how America took (his comment), like I was physically threatening Draymond. …I meant it, but I wasn’t going to actually physically punch the guy in the face. Listen, I like the kid. He’s annoying – I want to make that perfectly clear. But I hate when people try to change the narrative. I was thinking that, but I shouldn’t have said it. Plain and simple.”

…

“I’m going to apologize to Draymond and his Mom, because his Mom (Mary Babers-Green) said some stuff on Twitter today I heard about,” Barkley said. “She said, ‘Oh Barkley, I dare you…”

Barkley’s apology seems a bit more like a semi-apology, as he continues to assert Green is annoying and that he meant it when he said it, but wants to be clear he wasn’t physically threatening Green. Even if Barkley wasn’t threatening Green himself the message was that he wants someone to put him in his place and Green’s rebuttal was that Barkley has had chances to do it himself if he feels that way. We’ll see if Green will let this all pass or if it continues to simmer for some time.

Barkley, true to his word, offered up his apology prior to Rockets-Jazz which Shaq found hilarious.