Draymond Green: Suns’ Devin Booker needs to get out of Phoenix

Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green is still feeling the need to go out of his way to make the Phoenix Suns look bad.

As an analyst on TNT’s Inside the NBA on Friday, Green jumped at the chance to make a bold proclamation on what All-Star guard Devin Booker needs to do in the future.

“Get my man out of Phoenix.” 😅

Draymond wants D-Book to flourish somewhere else.

(via @NBAonTNT) pic.twitter.com/GV4ojWeV8o

— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) August 7, 2020

Host Ernie Johnson lobs the conversation of the Suns’ 4-0 start to Green to allow him to discuss the best story of the bubbe thus far.

Instead, Green wrestles it to the ground and throws it around in the mud.

“Get my man out of Phoenix,” he said. “It’s not good for him, it’s not good for his career … I need my man to go somewhere where he can play great basketball all the time and win.”

The conversation surrounding the Suns’ requirement to win at a certain level to keep Booker satisfied has certainly been relevant the past couple years. It hit that point when it was clear Booker was going to be an All-Star and likely an All-NBA level of player. A team can’t fail to win 30 games year after year and think those guys are going to stick around.

But the timing of Green’s remarks is as bad as the Warriors were this year when they needed him to be the team’s best player.

Head coach Monty Williams and general manager James Jones have the organization trending in the right direction for the first time in half a decade, and the proof of that has been in Orlando, where it is happening right in front of everybody.

Despite that, Green felt the need to shift the conversation about the team’s success to another one that just became irrelevant after years of it being the opposite.

This isn’t the first time Green has come out guns blazing against the Suns’ status as a franchise.

When asked about the development of his teammate Marquese Chriss, a top-10 pick by the Suns in 2017, Green pointed fingers at the organization.

“I think he’s been in some pretty tough situations. No one ever blames the situation, it’s always the kid. Nobody ever blames these (expletive) franchises,” Green said in mid-November.

That is a strong take, but the correct one. It was when Green kept talking, however, that he eventually got it wrong on why it happens.

“Because (reporters are) friends with them and you want all the access from them, so the way you guys can come out and bash players, y’all don’t do that to organizations,” Green said. “Because it’s all about access and protecting your future. No one really protects these younger guys’ future because it’s always about, ‘What can I do for myself?’ … That’s what I think it is.

“No Phoenix writer is going to bash the Phoenix Suns, but let’s be frank about it, when he was there, the organization was terrible. Everything was going wrong. But he gets blamed like he’s the problem. When he left nothing got right.”

As those familiar enough with this space know, we have spent a fair amount of time criticizing the Suns in all facets, rightfully so with how they’ve run things the past decade.

And that’s the reason why they will continue to run into situations like this one where someone will randomly yell into the abyss about the Suns being a bad spot for players to be, even when that is proven to no longer be the case.

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