The San Antonio Spurs may have gotten embarrassed by the New York Knicks in the 2026 NBA Finals, but they still had an impressive run and exceeded expectations this season.
While this is only the beginning for this young team, they rubbed some people the wrong way when they walked off the floor in unison after Game 5 and refused to congratulate the Knicks’ players for winning the title. Now, four-time NBA champion Draymond Green is the latest person to call out Victor Wembanyama and Co.
Draymond Green Calls Out Victor Wembanyama, Spurs for Walking Off the Floor
After the Spurs lost Game 5, Green called them out for not shaking hands with the Knicks’ players.
“Look your killer in the face, Green said on his podcast. “You gotta look them in their face. By the way, if you leave the court and you don’t look me in my face and I just beat you, I actually know that I own you forever because you couldn’t even look me in the face. And so to see them walk off the court, it was disheartening.
“I’ll blame it on youth. I’ll blame it on lacking the leader to show them that, ‘Hey, this is what you do, not walk off.’ I’ll blame it on that. Lacking the leadership, the leader, to show them, ‘No, no, no, there’s a way to win and there’s a way to lose… And walking off the court, not looking at your killers in the eyes ain’t the way to lose.”
Draymond on Wemby not shaking hands with the Brunson after the Finals:
“Look your killer in the face… if you leave the court and you don’t look me in my face and I just beat you. I actually know that I own you forever.”
(via @Money23Green, h/t @GothamJD) pic.twitter.com/5LlB5cIvTD
— Legion Hoops (@LegionHoops) June 15, 2026
For the record, for how controversial Green can be at times, he’s not being a hypocrite here. In the six NBA Finals he’s played in with Golden State, he’s lost two of them. The most recent loss was against the Toronto Raptors in 2019. When the Warriors lost, Green could be seen congratulating the Raptors on their title along with the rest of his teammates.
It’s not like the Spurs are the first team to do this, as the Detroit Pistons were infamously called out for leaving the floor and not shaking hands with the Chicago Bulls after the Bulls beat them in a similar fashion in the 1991 Eastern Conference Finals. Some NBA champions have even come to the Spurs’ defense for walking off the court.
However, the point still stands that, as painful as that moment is, walking off can easily be interpreted as disrespectful. The Knicks handled their business against the Spurs, and it definitely got testy at times, but San Antonio should have shown them respect when the final buzzer sounded.
Getting this far in Wembanyama’s third season is a pretty good indicator that they will be back in the NBA Finals someday, even if it’s not guaranteed. If and when they win a title, they, too, should feel disrespected if their opponent walks off the floor.
Green is definitely among the NBA’s most divisive players, but he’s also one of the league’s most successful players over the past decade or so, and he’s not wrong here.
