The Warriors thrashed the Pistons on Saturday night but after the game the conversation was focused on some postgame chirping that happened between Juan Toscano-Anderson and Rodney McGruder, which got Golden State’s All-Star vets strangely fired up. First, Klay Thompson who was on the Warriors broadcast for the night, ethered McGruder, saying he’s probably mad because he might be “out of the league” soon.
Draymond Green then followed that up with a two-minute rant on how there’s a lot of “fake tough guys” he’s noticed in the NBA this season, and wanting to know why McGruder of all people is being the enforcer for the Pistons. All of this stemmed from McGruder apparently taking offense to something Toscano-Anderson said to Wayne Ellington in the first half of the game, and Ellington addressed the sudden beef on Sunday.
Ellington called out Thompson and Green for attacking McGruder and his career, while also saying that Green was the one embodying a fake tough guy when he went after McGruder in his postgame presser.
Ellington said Juan Toscano-Anderson said something to him earlier, and Rodney McGruder took offense. Thinks he just wanted to clear the air. "For Draymond to sit up and talk all that type of crazy stuff behind the microphone, I think that’s the tough fake tough guy stuff."
— Omari Sankofa II (@omarisankofa) January 31, 2021
Ellington: "I’m only going to talk about that situation once, man, and put it behind us, but I thought it was unfair for those guys to attack my man like that, and I appreciate Rod and I love him like a brother for whatever he did do, that I know wasn’t 'tough guy' stuff."
— Omari Sankofa II (@omarisankofa) January 31, 2021
In all, this is, by far, the strangest NBA beef of the season, and the two sides won’t meet again until the yet to be announced second half of the season schedule in Detroit to settle any outstanding issues. Ellington has now said his piece and all parties involved will probably move on, but it is pretty incredible that for a 24-hour period the talk of the NBA world was a Klay/Dray/JTA vs. Ellington/McGruder war of words.
