Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green didn't think much of a comment attributed to Houston Texans owner Robert McNair during the NFL owners' meetings last month. According to an ESPN report, McNair said that the NFL "can't have inmates running the prison" during a discussion about whether the league should mandate that its players stand during the national anthem. McNair has since apologized multiple times and claims he was talking about his fellow owners, not NFL players, with his "inmates" reference.
Green doesn't seem to be buying that. In an Instagram post last week, he called McNair's comments "very Donald Sterling-esque," a reference to the Los Angeles Clippers' disgraced former owner, and said we need to rethink the use of the word "owner" itself:
"Wow! This sure does sound very Donald Sterling-esque. But I'm sure the fans pay to see him play and he's putting himself at risk of CTE by going out there every Sunday and giving 110%! Inmates? For starters, let's stop using the word owner and maybe use the word Chairman. To be owned by someone just sets a bad precedent to start. It sets the wrong tone. It gives one the wrong mindset. Webster states that an inmate is a person confined to an institution such as a prison or hospital. Not sure these tax paying men should be referred to as inmates- but what do I know?"
Green's thoughts on the word "owner" didn't sit well with one of them: Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban, who says Green is tying to make an unseemly connotation.
"For him to try to turn it into something it's not is wrong," Cuban told ESPN. "He owes the NBA an apology. I think he does, because to try to create some connotation that owning equity in a company that you busted your ass for is the equivalent of ownership in terms of people, that's just wrong. That's just wrong in every which way.
"People who read that message and misinterpret it — make it seem like we don't do everything possible to help our players succeed and don't care about their families and don't care about their lives, like hopefully we do for all of our employees — that's just wrong."
Cuban called McNair's comments "wrong, ridiculous," but that doesn't make it right for Green to equate ownership of a team or company to ownership of people, as in slavery.
"If you want to talk about slavery and everything that's important about it and some people who make comments and don't respect other individuals, great, let's have that conversation about people who don't respect others," Cuban said. "But don't try to suggest that because we have a team and the nomenclature is 'owners' because we own shares of stock, own equity, that it's analogous to slavery. That's just as bad [as McNair's comment]. It's just as bad.
"Don't ask me. Ask anybody who's ever played for me. Ask anybody who's ever worked for me. I'm far from perfect, but that's certainly not a connotation that you're going to hear from anybody that I've ever been associated with. I've been brutally honest about racism and how we have to work hard to overcome it, but to suggest that an NBA team is some sort of . . . I'm not even going to go there."
It's not the first time Cuban has publicly aired his thoughts on Green. In April 2016, he called the Warriors' forward a great player but not a franchise player.
"I think Draymond's an all-star, and I think he's really, really, really, really good, I think he's multi-faceted, but I wouldn't call him a superstar yet," he told Mavs Moneyball. "You're not going to put Draymond on a bad team and watch him win 50 games. Draymond, he makes all the players around him better, but I don't think he goes anywhere in the league and wins 50 games."