Tell me, bros. Does that look like the face of someone who used to pick fights with grown men as a child to prove how tough he is? Well, it should because 1) Come on, look at him and 2) He actually used to do that.
Lee Jenkins from Sports Illustrated sat down with Dray-Baby for this month’s cover story. While the entire article is great read, it’s the part where Draymond explains why he’s not afraid of any player, no matter how big or talented they are.
Via SI:
Green is suddenly transported to the Civitan Rec Center in Saginaw, Mich., once again the pudgy kid with the Ben Wallace Afro ignored by the older boys every time he chirped “Next!” He’d sit down in the middle of the court and scream, “Who do you think you are? I’m not leaving this floor for you!” Regulars alternated between sticking him in trash cans, rolling him in rugs, setting him on the rim, and banishing him to the pool table. He hurled billiard balls at his tormentors. “There were grown men trying to fight me,” Green says, “and I fought them all.” He fought anybody who messed with him and anybody who messed with his more reserved older brother, Torrian. Every other day, it seemed, a manager named Tyrone Davis had to kick him out of Civitan. Draymond would occasionally leave with a busted nose, as well as a game ball, which he would boot over the nearest fence. “Those big boys eventually learned,” says his mother, Mary Babers-Green, “that my baby better get his next.”
You can say all you want about how hilarious it must have been to see lil’ Dray get stuffed in garbage cans but also I really hope that big Dray took some time out of dominating the NBA to go back and beat the shit out of these dudes. He had a nice headstart as a kid by hurling pool balls at the grown men. I’m going to go out on a limb and say that those grown men didn’t appreciate having pool balls thrown at them and took their anger out on Green, hence leading to more built up frustration on the part of Green. Here’s a quick story. When I was a freshman in high school there was this scrawny senior in my gym class who everyone picked on. The seniors would start it off by kicking him over or throwing shit at him and it would devolve into the juniors and sophomores picking on him. (As a freshman I never fucked with him because there are some lines you just don’t cross.) Anyway, when I was a senior, this kid showed up to the Thanksgiving football game that most alumni went to with his dad and little brother. And this kid had goteen fucking huge in college. Well, apparently old habits die hard, because most of the other alumni began picking on the kid again, after the game, the kid beat the absolute living shit out of like six of his abusers. Two of the guys who got caught in his crossfire weren’t even alumni, just friends of friends. So, I guess the story here is, you never know how people are going to end up. So, I hope that Draymond returned to the neighborhood and beat the shit out of all the grown men who used to pick on him. I also hope that their friends got caught up in the whole debacle, too. Because nothing worse than getting your own nose broken and then also having to apologize to your buddy for inadvertently getting his nose broken too for your sins past.