Golden State Warriors ahead Draymond Green stated Thursday he believes that his tweets about women’s sports and also the pay difference with male athletes are”extremely misconstrued,” saying in part,”I’m on their side.”
Green talked about the topic one day after U.S. women’s national team star Megan Rapinoe ripped his opinions, saying it was”unfortunate” that an athlete at Green’s position did not have a more educated opinion.
On Thursday night, Green gave a passionate, rambling answer on the topic that lasted more than 10 minutes, repeatedly stating that he’s”in service” of exactly what Rapinoe is doing and is hopeful he can assist women’s sports.
“At the end of the day, what Megan desires and what I want is the same thing,” Green said. “And if she thinks that doing something a particular way gets her to the end goal, I am all for that. And if I believe doing something a certain way gets to the end goal, I’m all for that. So if we could both do something to move the needle to reach the end goal, good.
“I don’t have any complaints with whatever it’s that she wishes to perform or some other girl athlete. Or anybody who is trying to help drive their origin and what they would like to get done. What does matter to me is that we get there.”
In his tweets published on March 27, Green, in part, blamed girls for producing”complaints” instead of taking actions over disparities in pay and investment in women’s sports.
Green said Thursday the tweets did not fully capture the points he was trying to get across.
“A great deal of what I said from the conversation — you can’t really make my entire position in my tweets,” he explained. “Which was intentional because I really don’t want one to make out my whole position from a tweet. What I want to do is I need to raise consciousness with my tweets. I want to have these discussions to help get over here to the side of good, to the side which we are all trying to get to, to the side which we want to see these women get.”
On a Zoom call Wednesday ahead of this summer’s Olympics in Tokyo, Rapinoe told reporters that Green’s tweets were misguided. She pointed out that she along with a number of other female athletes have been doing many of the items Green stated they had to endure.
“That’s frustrating that’s the take you’ve got,” Rapinoe stated of Green’s tweets. “You obviously showed your whole ass in not even understanding what we all talk about all of the time — WNBA players and us on the national group. … You don’t think we asked for more money? I mean, what are we screaming about? Nonstop!”
Green said Thursday that he was”invited” to hear Rapinoe’s response to his opinions and did not take offense to her remarks.
“We all don’t need to think exactly the same thing or take the same path for an outcome — that’s just not realistic,” he said. “We all don’t have to take that path, so if her course that she is likely to take is different to get to the outcome or the path that I want to help take is distinct for to the outcome, so long as we’re both working towards the exact same outcome, I don’t have any issue with that.”