Draymond Green had a pretty easy time rationalizing why so many American NBA fans are rooting for the Toronto Raptors to upend the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals.
A map based on geotagged Twitter data showed that every state except for California, Nevada, and Hawaii was pulling for the Raptors against the three-time champions, in spite of the fact that none of the other 47 states have any ties to Toronto.
Pretty much all of America is rooting for a Canadian team to beat the Warriors in the NBA Finals https://t.co/hrUxywuRyL pic.twitter.com/i60pExiJfh
— SFGate (@SFGate) May 28, 2019
Green’s take? A lot of fans mad that the Warriors beat their teams.
Draymond: “People in the States are cheering against us because we beat all their teams.”
— Nick Friedell (@NickFriedell) May 31, 2019
Well, it may be part of it. There are also a lot of fans who aren’t huge on the superteam status the Warriors occupy, plus fans who are simply tired of them and want to see a new winner. People love an underdog story, after all, and this is the Raptors’ first NBA Finals.
There’s plenty of abuse from Toronto, too, and Green has long been one of the NBA’s most polarizing players. At this point, he’s used to it by now.
