Draymond Green made waves during his recent interview with Trae Young, while the Hawks star grabbed plenty of attention as well for numerous interesting opinions surrounding the NBA.
While the two sat down for an episode of The Draymond Green Show at the Uninterrupted Film Festival, one interesting topic was Young's status as an NBA "villain," specifically to Knicks fans. As the Warriors star first began discussing Young's portrayal as the villain, he pointed to Knicks fans, openly calling them "f------ delusional and miserable," as New York Basketball transcribed.
"Where that all was birthed really was the series vs the Knicks ... New York Knicks fans are f------ delusional and miserable; and I love New York, so don't ban me from y'all city. But they're a hard fanbase. You go in the Garden, you hitting the shots, you bowin' ... you making every play…" Green stated.
"You are very much a showman, but yet that's been flipped ... into being this villain. I'll be the first to say it, being a villain sucks, it's no fun. But when it's up against you, you either fold or you stand up to it, you go into it," he continued.
Green’s comments primarily point back to where this initially began, during the 2020–21 NBA playoffs when Young and the Hawks faced the Knicks in the first round. While Atlanta went on to win the series 4–1, the explosive guard was a primary talking point, both due to his play and the fact he played into Knicks fans immediately targeting him with chants and heckles—a whole lot of what you’d expect an NBA “villain” to receive.
Young responded to what Green said on the topic by stating that he doesn’t “dive into that” too much, but he moreso “feeds off the crowd.” The 24-year-old guard pointed to Game 1 of the series, stating that the arena was chanting “F— Trae Young” almost immediately.
“I kind of feed off the crowd … Game 1, the whole arena was yelling “F Trae Young” like two minutes into the game … What do you want me to do? I’m just hooping. I ain’t said nothing to the crowd, I ain’t bowed, I ain’t say ‘It’s quiet as F in here,’ I ain’t say none of that yet. I just really played off of how they guarded me & how the fans reacted. I come out playing, trying to win, trying to put on a show, & the fans wanna get into it …” Young stated.
