Draymond Green’s new media revolution needs help

Athletes have taken back the power to tell their stories. Listen to any podcast about sports media, and you’re bound to hear hand-wringing about players cutting out the middlemen so their story comes out exactly the way they want it told. It’s part of what Dan Le Batard was alluding to when he declared that sports journalism is dead.

The face of the movement is Draymond Green, and that is very appropriate. He was one of the first athletes to break through with real success. He is also the loudest and most shameless about making sure you know that he has figured out a better way to do this job than anyone else.

Green is also proof that talking for a living is not as easy as you might think. While he’s loud, Green doesn’t have much to say. That tends to happen when the only person saying you don’t need to get better is you.

I’m not sure Draymond Green’s ceiling as a broadcaster is as high as we’ve been led to believe. Last week, he was still playing the “everyone in sports media sucks” card, the ol’ chestnut that got him here in the first place. 

Plenty of athletes have decided to go it alone with a podcast or live stream. Some, like Cam Newton, have a producer who is there to ask questions and set up stories, but how many of them have a boss or someone to coach them and point out what is and isn’t working? How many of them have turned to a professional talker to ask how they can get better? Whatever the actual number is, I know it’s not enough.

What’s so clear to me about Green is that he has no idea what the job of any of the people he criticizes actually is. Green sees things in a vacuum. He already has all the knowledge he will ever have about this world. His recent comments about Shams Charania revealing the MVP vote prove it.

There is zero curiosity about what Charania’s goal is or how the ESPN reporter came by the information that Shai Gilgeous-Alexander would be revealed as the winner. Someone who is not a player is saying something about the league, so it must be wrong. 

Shams on leaking the MVP announcement:

“My job is to report the news. It’s not gonna be the last time where I’m just gonna try to do my job to the best of my ability” pic.twitter.com/sstPPR9xMQ

— LakeShowYo (@LakeShowYo) May 18, 2026

If you don’t know what the job is, you’ll never learn what matters. There’s a reason Green’s jab at Charles Barkley’s time in Houston went over like a wet fart on the Inside the NBA set. 

Green just clearly isn’t a good hang. Give-and-take and the ability to be part of the group really matter in this world. His shtick is calling people out. He’s never learned how to do the things that make you good on a broadcast. To be fair, though, has anyone taken the time to teach him?

When you think about which athletes and former athletes are having real success in the podcasting realm, Shannon Sharpe’s name is bound to be near the top of the list. He routinely has something to say and has great conversations. Do you think that’s because Sharpe is naturally gifted, or because he spent sixteen years enjoying the structure of TV before launching a podcast? 

What lessons did Sharpe learn from his time on The NFL Today, Undisputed, and First Take? The most obvious one is that he understands how conversation works. He never seems to be waiting for his turn to talk. He listens to his guests or co-hosts and asks follow-up questions. That’s how he stays ready to go wherever the conversation takes him.

Maybe going in the opposite direction is why NBC’s NBA studio show has felt kind of hollow this season. NBC bet big on Carmelo Anthony, but listen to a couple of episodes of his podcast, 7 PM in Brooklyn. If all you’ve seen are clips, you might think Anthony is the dynamic center of the action. After a few episodes, though, you’ll see just how often he hangs back in roundtable conversations until he has the opening to tell a story.

Sharpe was bringing a refined knowledge to a space crawling with self-proclaimed innovators. Anthony was plucked from that same space and asked to be great in a world where greatness is shaped over time.

Not every athlete needs a podcast, but these shows are launched for all kinds of reasons. Some were told it’s part of how you build a brand in 2026. Others probably thought they had more to say than they actually did. 

I’m not sure enough people are interested in hearing directly from athletes every week, and athletes are too busy to put on a good show consistently. TikTok and Instagram pages still work perfectly. If you have something to say, do it in two minutes, post it, and move on with your day. No one needs to take on the burden of building a full show if they don’t really want to.