Draymond Green didn’t hold back when addressing Victor Wembanyama’s recent MVP case, making it clear that while he respected the message, he was frustrated it even needed to be said.
“Wemby said, ‘Defense is 50% of the game,’ and it was like, oh, no one realized that?” Green said according to ESPN. “No one realized that 50% of the game we play is on that end of the floor?”
Wembanyama had recently laid out his MVP argument after a win over the Miami Heat, highlighting his defensive dominance, overall offensive impact, and his team’s success against Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and the Oklahoma City Thunder.
While Green appreciated the confidence, he questioned why it took a player saying it out loud for the conversation to shift.
“Everybody says he has a great point,” Green said. “Hello? You think? I hated that he had to do that for it to be said. All of a sudden, you turn on the TV and everybody is like, ‘Actually, maybe Wemby is the MVP.’”
Green then widened the lens, calling it a broader issue with how defense is valued across the league.
“It’s an indictment on the game of basketball,” Green said. “Everybody want to crush Luka Doncic when Luka doesn’t live up to the standard of defense. But we got this guy defending entire teams and nobody took it into account until he said defense is 50% of the game. I want to give him so much credit for such a profound statement, but was it really that profound? But it’s so true. Yet it took for him to say that.”
The veteran forward, no stranger to campaigning for awards himself, admitted that self-promotion has become part of the process.
“With these awards, if you don’t talk, people can’t see,” Green said. “With the game of basketball, let’s not act like everyone can just open their eyes and know what’s going on. … Until Evan Mobley finally said something last year, no one was going to give him Defensive Player of the Year. If you don’t come out and speak for yourself, it don’t work.”
