National Basketball Association

NBA Finals 2022: Champion Warriors embrace their inner pettiness

Updated Jun. 22, 2022 1:29 p.m. ET

By Melissa Rohlin
FOX Sports NBA Writer

Draymond Green finished his speech at the Warriors' championship parade on Monday by thanking his fans — and adding a message to his haters.

"I just want to thank y'all, and as always, f--- everyone else," Green said as his teammates smiled and clapped.

That same day, Steph Curry posted a photo of himself holding the Larry O'Brien trophy, as well as his awards for Finals MVP and Western Conference finals MVP, adding the following message: "What they gonna say now?"

It was a direct shot to the two biggest critiques he had recently received, namely, he could no longer carry a team to a championship, and he wasn't clutch enough when it counted most because he had never won a Finals MVP.

They were perfect examples of the so-called pettiness that went on throughout the NBA Finals, which some found hilarious and endearing — and others found surprising and perhaps even a bit upsetting.

According to Stephen P. Gonzalez, the Assistant AD for Leadership and Mental Performance at Dartmouth College and an executive board member for the Association for Applied Sports Psychology, pettiness can actually be a useful tool for motivation.

"A level of pettiness absolutely can serve as rocket fuel," Gonzalez said. "But as we know, rocket fuel burns very, very quickly, and it doesn't last very long."

The Warriors needed some extra motivation this postseason to help resurrect themselves. The resounding narrative heading into the season was that they were done. Kaput. The dynasty was over.

After all, they had missed the playoffs two years in a row, finishing with the worst record in the league in 2019-20. And their stars were considered over the hill, with Curry (34), Green (32) and Klay Thompson (32) each nearing retirement-home age in basketball years.

So in the final stretch of the postseason, the Warriors embraced their inner petty in all its glory.

After Game 5, Curry wore a T-shirt that read "Ayesha Curry CAN Cook" in response to a sign near TD Garden in Boston that claimed that his wife, well, can't.

Then, after Game 6, he held zeroes over his eyes to make fun of ESPN analysts Kendrick Perkins and Domonique Foxworth, who made the same hand gesture in August when talking about how many more championships they thought the Warriors would win over the next four years.

As for Thompson, his petty came out after the Warriors clinched their fourth title in eight years. While being interviewed, unprovoked, he expressed his annoyance with Memphis Grizzlies forward Jaren Jackson Jr., who tweeted "Strength in numbers" after beating the Warriors in a regular-season game in March. The tweet was a shot at the Warriors' old motto, and it apparently ate at Thompson for months.

"It pissed me off so much," Thompson said at the time. "I can't wait to retweet that thing. Freakin' bum ... Gonna mock us? You ain't ever been there before. We've been there before. We know what it takes."

As for Green, he dished it out just as much as he took it. During every road game In Boston, there was a deafening chorus of around 18,000 fans chanting "F--- you, Draymond." It bothered his wife and some of his teammates. The only person who wasn't offended? Green himself.

"I embrace it," he said. "I enjoy it."

It didn't take long for his teammates to find the humor in it, too. In fact, after they won the title, they all chanted "F--- you, Draymond" in their locker room as they sprayed champagne bottles on each other.

When asked about that chant, Kevon Looney joked, "Draymond been yelling at us all year, too," as both he and Otto Porter Jr. erupted in laughter.

Green, of course, got the last laugh when it came to Celtics fans. He mocked the franchise falling short of its 18th title by wearing a shirt with squares of its 17 banners — and a blank square, in which he wrote in Sharpie, "Nope!! Maybe in '23."

The funny part of it all is that at least two of the Warriors' Big Three have never been considered petty. Curry is known as someone who exudes joy and hardly engages in trash talk. Thompson is a man of few words who prefers hanging out with his dog to being around humans. Green, however, has long been the fiery soul of the team, who would sometimes push boundaries.

But in the NBA Finals, all the Warriors' stars embraced their petty — and, quite frankly, it was a lot of fun.

"Does it humanize people a little bit?" Gonzalez asked. "Absolutely, it does. Does it engage the fans a little bit more? Yeah, it totally does."

Gonzalez added that it makes complete sense that the Warriors had fun with some pettiness during their late-postseason push, even adding that pettiness can be beneficial in multiple ways.

Not only can it give players some extra oomph, but it can also deflect attention from their performances and onto their words. Players are under such an intense microscope during the championship round that perhaps it's nice for millions of people to be chatting about something they said versus focusing on every little thing they've done wrong over the course of a series.

Pettiness, of course, is a long-used strategy.

In fact, many of the all-time greats were experts at channeling its strength to their benefit.

Kobe Bryant used to replay criticism in his head as he shot alone in the gym. Michael Jordan is infamous for saying, "I took that personally," a slogan he repeated multiple times in the documentary "The Last Dance." And LeBron James often tweets the words "Washed King" after he breaks records as a dig at anyone who thinks he's past his prime.

But Gonzalez said that while pettiness is a great source of motivation, it can't be the main driver or athletes will eventually lose steam. In other words, their internal desire to be great needs to outweigh any external motivations.

Of course, all of those superstars were also incredibly famous for their never-ending desire to be the best, a quest fueled mainly by proving something to themselves.

"It's a good short-term, but it is not a long-term solution," Gonzalez said of pettiness. "To do it in spite of others and have that be your only source long-term, research is pretty clear — that does not last very long."

For the Warriors, this level of pettiness has been relatively new. And it has been a heck of a lot of fun for many people.

But the Warriors' pettiness could make them even more of a target next season. They're the good guys gone bad. They're no longer the darlings of the league whose superstars surprised everyone by defying the odds. They're now the trash talkers, who derive untold pleasure from crushing those who didn't believe in them.

That said, the pettiness isn't likely to stop any time soon.

Green made that abundantly clear the past few days by blasting the team's doubters over social media. At the championship parade, he emphatically proclaimed that he's going to continue to enjoy his latest favorite pastime.

"I told y'all don't let us win a f---ing championship," he said, "and clearly nobody could stop it. I warned y'all."

Melissa Rohlin is an NBA writer for FOX Sports. She previously covered the league for Sports Illustrated, the Los Angeles Times, the Bay Area News Group and the San Antonio Express-News. Follow her on Twitter at @melissarohlin.