Golden State Warriors small forward Andre Iguodala was booed when he entered last night’s 123-95 blowout loss to the Memphis Grizzlies in the first quarter at FedExForum in Memphis, Tenn.
He was booed when he rose up to hit a three-pointer.
If you ask virtually any Memphis Grizzlies fan why he was booed, they’ll point to the fact that despite trading for the three-time NBA champion in 2019 — a move that helped the Warriors free up cap space to acquire All-Star guard D’Angelo Russell and should’ve also helped a young Memphis core — Iguodala never played a single minute for the Grizzlies’ franchise (despite being a member of it for seven months!). He was eventually traded to the Miami Heat in February of 2020. Iguodala told The Athletic after the trade that he never explicitly stated he didn’t want to play for the Grizzlies, but that the decision for him to sit out the entire season before a trade was a “mutual agreement” with Memphis. So he wanted to play for them, but also mutually agreed to not play for them. Got it.
If, however, you ask Iguodala why he was booed on Monday night, he has a decidedly different answer.
“This is my second time playing here,” Iguodala said after Monday’s loss in Memphis. “I think that’s just part of how sports and fans have become. They are more into the games with their emotions and feelings and obviously the narrative that can be driven, especially from those that are of wealth that control the media and are in ownership position. They can kinda control the narrative of how it goes out there. I’m understanding that the true story isn’t always going to get out there. You deal with it and move forward.”
Whoa. OK.
Iguodala did not go on to share the “true story” on Monday night, and hasn’t offered it up in the three years since he was traded. He also apparently never offered up that “true story” to his former teammates. Both Memphis All-Star Ja Morant and Dillon Brooks have been outspoken about the way Iguodala handled his time in Memphis. Here’s Dillon Brooks on Feb. 3, 2020, days before Iguodala was traded (and seven months into his tenure with Memphis): “I feel like he’s doing the right thing for his career, but we don’t really care. It’s not a distraction at all. I laugh at that type of stuff. A guy that’s on our team that doesn’t want to be on our team. I can’t wait ’til we find a way to trade him so we can play him and show him what really Memphis is about.”
Ja Morant shared the final sentence of Brooks’ quote on Twitter the same day:
Brooks piled onto Iguodala again on Monday after the beat-down of the Warriors.
“We all had a vision and he didn’t, which is perfect. Send him back to the Warriors and let him do his thing over there,” Brooks said. “But from the beginning we were growing a base and we kept building and building and building and more guys got on the train.”
Iguodala dismissed Brooks and Morant back in 2020, chalking up their comments to them being “Millennials.” (Brooks and Morant are technically both members of Generation Z, if you use the Pew Research Center’s 1996 cut-off date.)
“I understand the generation that we’re in, and the new millennials we’re dealing with, and how social media comes into play and how someone could feed (ideas) to a young guy and it (grows),” he said.
The “ideas” or “narrative” that were fed to Brooks and Morant in this case seem to be that Iguodala requested a buyout (Iguodala wouldn’t deny this when asked about it in 2020, but every NBA insider at ever major media outlet said it was being discussed!), didn’t want to play for the Grizzlies (he mutually agreed to not play for them!) and wanted to go to a contender (which he did, and he made the NBA Finals with that very contender, the Miami Heat, as a result!).
If you want the “true story,” you’ll need to ask someone other than 1. “Millennials,” 2. Ja Morant or Dillon Brooks, 3. NBA insiders, 4. Grizzlies fans, 5. “those that are of wealth that control the media,” or 6. NBA owners. Godspeed, truth seekers.
