Kevin Durant didn't buy what seemed to be a staged apology to Draymond Green by TNT analyst Charles Barkley, who first apologized, then excused his behavior (followed by his co-panelists doing the same) — saying his words were taken out of context and just read to him during the press conference without any indication of tone.
Durant still believes Barkley's sentiment of punching Green in the face were genuine, and the apology was just fulfilling the network's wishes, following the backlash.
“But Barkley ain’t punching nobody, like Draymond said,” Durant said on Thursday, according to Anthony Slater of The Athletic. “I don’t know why he’s so angry all the time about the new generation of basketball but I guess that’s what it is.”
“We rarely see Charles Barkley anyway. He’s going to stay in the studio, look at games on TV and we’re going to go out here and just play the game that we love. He had his time already. I’m sure there were plenty of guys back in the day he had an opportunity to punch and he didn’t. We can move on from that.”
So far, only Stephen A. Smith has stood up to defend Barkley in this verbal back-and-forth, with the likes of Jalen Rose condemning him for going “too far” with his comments, bordering unprofessionalism as a TV analyst.
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