Danny Green says ‘hard no’ to Raptors visiting White House

Danny Green made it quite clear on his podcast that he and the Toronto Raptors have no interest in visiting the White House to celebrate winning the NBA championship.

The winners of major sporting championships in America are often invited to the White House to be honored by the sitting president, but many teams and/or players have not continued this tradition during Donald Trump’s presidency. On his “Inside the Green Room” podcast on Yahoo Sports Canada, Green said his stance was a “hard no” on the Raptors visiting while Trump is in office.

Raptors to the White House?

"To put it politely, I think it's a hard no." – @DGreen_14 pic.twitter.com/do6vyQa7O7

— Yahoo Sports Canada (@YahooCASports) June 22, 2019

“I just don’t think that we accept,” Green said. “And I try to respect everybody in every field, regardless of how crazy things are. But he makes it very hard. He makes it very, very tough to respect how he goes about things and does things. But I’ll put it politely — it’s a hard no.”

The Raptors would be continuing the tradition of NBA teams skipping a visit with Trump. The Warriors started the trend by saying they didn’t want to visit. The Philadelphia Eagles did not attend after winning the Super Bowl. In all those cases, Trump petulantly rescinded invitations after the players expressed disinterest in attending. In the Eagles’ case, the visit was reportedly cancelled to avoid embarrassing the president. The president’s divisive politics also led to numerous Red Sox figures not attending their celebration.

Players have shown their beliefs in the past by not attending the White House under previous administrations, but the style and political beliefs of Trump have led to much more contention than ever before, which is on display with Green’s comments.