NBA Twitter wasted no time bringing up receipts regarding Draymond Green and Chris Paul's relationship.
Shortly after news broke of the Warriors' trade for the 38-year-old future Hall of Famer, a clip of Green's appearance on the "All the Smoke" podcast from April 2020 made rounds on Twitter.
"I don't like CP at all, we don't have a good relationship at all," Green told former teammates and hosts of the podcast Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson. "But I respect his hustle and I respect his IQ -- he's smart as hell."
What's important to note is that Green's answer was in response to Barnes asking about the Los Angeles Clippers-Warriors rivalry in the mid-2010s and when Green knew Steph Curry was going to take the next step to become an NBA legend.
"And CP saw Steph coming up and once you start to get older in this league, you start to realize, 'OK, this guy is coming. Eventually, he may catch me because I'm going to start to decline at some point,' " Green said. "And so I would kind of see CP kind of keep Steph at bay but yet f--king giving him a stiff arm at the same time."
The Warriors' fiery leader added that while he loves Curry, he understands that it's not in his teammate's nature to use his words as weapons. Instead, Curry lets his game do the talking, and oftentimes, that by itself speaks volumes.
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As a result, Green took charge and became a vocal leader to help guide the Warriors through the Clippers in their many matchups.
"And so, I took it upon myself to try to create f--king division there because I knew, that if we wanted to win, we had to f--king go through them," Green continued. "And if we wanted to get through them, we can't through with him keeping you at bay."
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The rest, as they say, is history.
Golden State went on to win four championships with Curry, Green, Klay Thompson and coach Steve Kerr leading the way. Meanwhile, Los Angeles soon disbanded their core of Paul, Blake Griffin and DeAndre Jordan and still are looking to win their first NBA title, this time with Kawhi Leonard and Paul George.
For his part, Paul said he had briefly spoken with Curry and shared that he is "excited" to help the Warriors contend for another championship after the trade was announced.
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With a new era seemingly on the horizon for Paul and Golden State, Warriors fans are hoping that Green and Paul's relationship has improved in the last three years since the release of that specific episode.
If not, NBA Twitter will be all over any little thing that happens between the two fiery personalities.
