Shaq fires back at Draymond Green over cross-era trash talk

Draymond Green is getting into it with yet another member of the TNT crew.

Speaking Tuesday on an episode of his podcast, Basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal responded to some recent comments made by Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green. The former Defensive Player of the Year had said that he and Warriors teammate Stephen Curry would “destroy” O’Neal in the pick-and-roll in a hypothetical matchup across eras.

“I like Draymond. I like guys that voice their opinion,” he said, per Michael Kaskey-Blomain of CBS Sports. “I try not to get personal with guys. I like him, I like the way he plays. You have to listen to his points. He made good, key points. He said in their era. He didn’t say in my era.

“In my era, [the Warriors] would have been the six or seven seed,” O’Neal added. “You had us, you had San Antonio, you had the Utah Jazz, you had Portland, you had White Chocolate and C-Webb [in Sacramento]. But again, it’s his opinion. I try not to get personal with people’s opinions. But however, Mr. Draymond, like you said, I would’ve torn your a– up on that block.”

Green and O’Neal are certainly representative of two very different archetypes of big men with completely divergent skillsets — the former is the undersized playmaker and defensive fireball giving life to Golden State’s killer small-ball lineups, while the latter was the overpowering Goliath who ruled over the post with an iron fist and dunked entire bodies into the basket.

As for which style is the superior one, that is a matter of personal preference and opinion. At least we can all agree though that these are much tamer than the remarks exchanged by Green and O’Neal’s colleague Charles Barkley.