Austin Rivers took to Instagram on Tuesday (May 5) to settle his back-and-forth with Draymond Green once and for all.
Rivers started off the three-minute video by explaining that he felt compelled to respond after hearing Green’s “disrespectful” remarks about him and his basketball career.
“First off, Draymond, we weren’t the same players in high school,” Rivers said. “I don’t care about our numbers being similar. I did it at the national level, the top level. Hence why I got the Naismith [Prep Player of the Year] Award, and I got pretty much every award you can think of in high school.”
On an episode of The Draymond Green Show earlier this week, the Golden State Warriors star chose to compare their high school basketball resumes because he believes that was when Rivers was “at [his] best.”
Green claimed he and Rivers averaged the same amount of points in high school. According to his Michigan State Spartans profile, Green averaged 20 points per game as a senior at Saginaw High School, whereas Rivers averaged 29.2 points per game in his senior year at Winter Park High School, per Duke.
“I was ranked No. 1, you were ranked, I don’t know,” Rivers said of Green, who was ranked No. 36 by ESPN.
Rivers admitted Green was a “really good college basketball player,” adding that “it’s hard to compare” their collegiate careers since he was “there for six months, something you could never do.”
Rivers went on to rattle off his college basketball accomplishments, which include leading his team in points per game with 15.5, as well as being named First-Team All-ACC and ACC Rookie of the Year.
While Rivers did not dispute that Green had the better NBA career, he wanted to provide some context regarding how the Warriors star ended up, in part, where he is today.
“You were the luckiest basketball player, I think, I’ve ever seen, especially in modern day history,” he said. “You were drafted to a franchise with a Hall of Fame front office, Bob Myers; Hall of Fame coach, Steve Kerr; the greatest shooter of all time and perhaps a top-five player of all time, Steph Curry, Hall of Famer; one of the greatest shooters, top-five shooter of all time, another Hall of Famer, Klay Thompson; the Swiss Army Knife himself, the guy who could do a little bit of everything on the floor, Andre Iguodala, another Hall of Famer.”
“I know, keep up, it’s a lot of talent,” Rivers continued. “Not to mention, one of the most lethal scorers of all time and arguably a top 10 player of all time, Kevin Durant, the same guy you chased off because of this, your mouth, you talk too much.”
Rivers also criticized Green’s shooting ability, pointing out how teams tend to leave him wide open because they do respect his shot, or allow him to go coast-to-coast for a layup because “everyone is fanning out to guard the actual talent on the team.”
Rivers closed out his video by revisiting the disagreement that sparked their back-and-forth. Green floated the idea that his NBA career has been “hindered” by playing for the Warriors under Kerr, to which Rivers called his thinking “ridiculous.”
“Bro, Steve Kerr made your career, how dare you?” he said.
