It is one of the few sports that combine players not being obligated to wear protective gear like helmets to cover their faces and fans sit courtside and can be up and close with the players. Combining this with the social media presence that many NBA players have, it is the league in which the fans are most connected and for the most part, know the most about all of the players. As a result of this, the NBA is the closest thing that we have to reality TV in sports and just like any good reality show most characters have enough personality and are polarizing enough to either have many love them or hate them. Today we will be covering the 10 most hated players in the NBA.
The first player on the list is Draymond Green. The hate for Green has subsided a little since it hit it’s peak when the Warriors were going on their four straight Finals runs. However, there are still a lot of fans who hate Draymond. He is very expressive about calls or if he scores which can rub people the wrong way. Along with this, his outrage over many common foul calls leads to him receiving a technical foul as well. The main factor in which Draymond is hated by so many is his dirty style of play. This was highlighted in the 2016 playoff run the Warriors had in series against the Oklahoma City Thunder and the Cleveland Cavaliers. The first comes in a series against the Oklahoma City Thunder. When guarded by Thunder big man Steven Adams (Steve-in Adams) Green flailed his leg and it found its way to hit Adams where the sun does not shine at full force. This could have been waved off as a genuine mistake, however, the same thing happened again in the same series. Just one series after this, Draymond found a new player to target. During game 5 of the 2016 NBA Finals, LeBron James (Luh-Bron James) stepped over Green and understandably he took offense to this. As James was finishing his step over Green shot up and punched at LeBron’s manhood. Lucky for James, Green’s punch did not connect and for the punch, he would be suspended in game 6. Which many claims is the reason why the Warriors would wind up blowing a 3-1 lead and losing the 2016 NBA finals.
The second player was Draymond’s teamate for two years on the Golden State Warriors and won two championships with the team. Durant joining the 73-9 Warriors is why he is still one of the most hated players in the entire leageu. Before free agency hit, he was one of the most beloved players in the leaue, however, that all flipped on him once he joined the Warriors. Durant’s former team the Oklagoma City Thunder had a 3-1 lead on the Warriors which they blew. It was expected that Durant would resign with the Thunder and give it another shot in the next season. However, he signed with the Warriors and formed arguably the best team of all time. This move made him the most hated player in the league at the time and sent the entire NBA into a frenzy. After the move, Durant was forced to shut down his restaurant in Oklahoma City and the Thunder started a smear campaign against him once he came back for his first game, deeming him a cupcake and starting a very heated rivalry between the Thunder and the Warriors. The reasons people hated on Durant did not just stop with this move however, time and time again Durant has had run-ins with fans on social media that said negative things about him. While many players have back and forths with fans they are typically not frowned upon like they were with Durant. The reasoning behind that could be that Durant did not do the social media trash talking on his account. It was discovered that Durant had burner accounts on Twitter that he would use to argue with people online in a way to defend his name. He has admitted proudly that he still uses burner accounts to this day which caused him to be hated on to this day.
127 our experts are availableright now
The next player on the list is LeBron James. While the hate for James has greatly decreased since free agency in 2010, he may be the most hated and most loved player in the league. The major reason behind the hate that James gets is that he has not consistently stuck with the same team throughout his career. This started when he left the Cleveland Cavaliers to form a superteam with the Miami Heat. Once his running mates in Miami started to age he went back to Cleveland, and once Kyrie forced a trade and the roster was in shambles, he left for the Los Angeles Lakers. While these are all smart moves on James’s part, it leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the fans that he leaves. Another reason why LeBron is hated is that he is the closest player to come to surpassing Michael Jordan as the greatest of all time and some believe that he has already achieved this. Many people have grown up watching Michael Jordan and idolizing him for their whole lives so when someone comes around and threatens his legacy they are not going to like that player. The final main reason why LeBron is hated by some is what they refer to as LeGM. This is because when LeBron joins a team or is on a team there is sort of a revolving door policy with his supporting cast and role players, almost no one is safe and almost anyone could be traded at any time which fans feel like is not a genuine or the right way to build a team.
Next up is Stephen Curry. He falls into the same category as LeBron James, being loved by many but also hated by many as well. One reason why people do not like him is that he is seemingly impossible to guard and when he is shooting well absolutely no one in the league can stop him. This can be incredibly frustrating to watch as a fan and is more than enough that to dread and hate whenever Steph shows up on your team’s schedule. Another reason as to why people hate Steph is because of the way that he has revolutionized basketball. Before his rise to superstardom, the league was played in a much more traditional way. However, Steph and the Warriors flipped the way that basketball is played on its head. Their run and gun three-point oriented offense, small-ball lineups, and the amount of three’s their stars shot per game were enough to cause people to stop watching basketball entirely because they did not like this style of play and preferred a much more traditional style of play.
The next player is James Harden. He is possibly the most hated player in the entire NBA, but at the same time is one of the best. The first reason as to why people hate James Harden is the perceived truth that he does not try on defense. Despite this reputation, Harden still averages 1.6 steals a game in his career and had a career-high average of steals in the 2018-2019 season with 2.0 a game. Another reason as to why people do not like Harden is the number of shots that he takes per game. Many have made a habit of hating on the scoring outbursts of Harden by bringing up things like his shots attempted and field goal percentage. Also, people do not like that he seemingly cannot get along or coexist with another star player on the same team as him. In both of the attempts to get a sidekick it only led to locker room issues and conflict with Harden. Interestingly it went this way with both Dwight Howard (D-white Howard) and Chris Paul (Pronounced as speeled). While Howard has been known as a locker room cancer almost everywhere he has gone in his career, it is the issue with Paul that leads to some of the hate Harden receives. As he seemingly refuses to share the spotlight with a player it has led some to call him a diva and a player that refuses to play with anyone that limits his shots per game and touches. Harden has helped to fight this stigma this season by at times taking a step back and letting new teammate and second option Russell Westbrook (Russell West-Brooke) take over the offense at times. The final and most notorious reason as to why people do not like James Harden is that he seemingly has every official in the league wrapped around his finger, he shoots countless free throws a game in which some of the fouls come from phantom calls in which he is not even touched but simulates and makes it look like there was contact so a foul is called.
The next player on the list is Rajon Rondo. While he is seemingly the perfect player for people to like with his playstyle of being a defensive pass-first point guard, he at one time in his career was arguably the most hated player in the league. Rondo was part of the Boston Celtics superteam which is were Rondo spent the best years of his career. After the Celtics, he bounced from team to team and could not find a good fit. It has been rumored that he is a locker room cancer and an awful teammate. While none of us know if this is true, it has been speculated time and time again. Another aspect of why people do not like Rondo is his eagerness to put down other players, get in many confrontations with players both on his team and on the opposing team. An example of putting down other players is an interview in 2018 in which he claimed that Paul was an awful teammate after the two exchanged punches in a brawl between the Los Angeles Lakers and the Houston Rockets. Putting down his teammates came in the same season, in a regular-season game towards the end of another loss for the Lakers, Rondo refused to sit with his teammates and instead sat courtside with a random fan.
Another hated player in the NBA is Rudy Gobert. Rudy was one of the more well-liked players in the league before his antics in one of the last days the NBA was up and running. Days before the NBA shut down, Gobert was at a press conference and once it ended he jokingly started touching everyone and all of the equipment he could get his hands on. You do not need me to tell you how unhygienic that is and how easily germs and the virus can spread from actions like this. Days later, the news would break that Gobert was diagnosed with COVID-19 and as a result, the league would be shut down. This led to the interview from just days prior to being plastered all over social media and made Rudy one of the most hated players. This is not even where the story ends, however. The news would later break that Gobert did not take the virus seriously at all before he was diagnosed and would jokingly touch players and their belongings while making jokes about the virus. This immaturity from him before he was diagnosed led to fellow Jazz star Donovan Mitchell (Don-o-van Mitch-ell) to be disgusted in Gobert’s behavior and he was quoted as saying that the relationship between the two is irreparable. Also, since the Jazz players were individually quarantined, it has been reported that Rudy has refused to answer calls from the Jazz organization.
The next player did not earn the crown of being a hated player himself and by far is the player that deserves to be on this list the least. Lonzo coming into the league had a huge target on his back and from day one in the league was a villain. Not because of anything that he had done or said, he is a low ego and quiet kid that works hard on his craft and mainly keeps to himself and his family. However, it is that family and more specifically his father that is the reason why Lonzo is so hated. His father went on sports shows through his sons college and NBA career making ridiculous claims about both him and his son. He claimed that the Golden State Warriors would be better off with his son who was in college at the time above Steph Curry. He claims that he himself could beat Michael Jordan in a game of one on one. Lastly, he said that LeBron would not win another championship without his son on the roster. This rubbed the players that were brought up in the claims the wrong way and they took this anger and frustration out on Lonzo and the fans followed suit.
Patrick Beverley is one of the best perimeter players in the league and is one of the most beloved players by the fans of any team he is a part of, however, he is also one of the most hated players in the league by fans of every other team. He has been deemed a dirty player. These claims became widespread when he injured Russell Westbrook on a play that looked like he intentionally dived at his legs. This started a major beef between the two that still stand to this day. Along with this, he has one of the biggest egos in the league. He has gone on record claiming that some of the toughest players to guard in the league like LeBon James and James Harden are a cakewalk for him and when he went on the podcast “All the Smoke” he claimed that there has never been a player in the league that has “busted his ass” or given him a “welcome to the league” type of moment.
The final player on the list is Chris Paul. While many love Paul and his unselfish style of basketball, others hate him because of his leadership ways. Just like Harden, Paul has never particularly flourished when sharing the spotlight with another star. It was said that both the Los Angles Clippers and Houston Rockets locker rooms were toxic when Paul was on the team. Another reason many do not like Paul is that he consistently complains to the refs when a call does not go his way. He is one of the worst in the league when it comes to this. However, with him being one of the best pure point guards in the league, many still love Paul as a player.
There are many things that can cause a player to be hated in the NBA. Whether it be the way that they play the game, the way they talk to the media, antics they pull, how they are as a teammate, and even the way their family members act is enough to make certain players some of the most hated in the league. Thanks for watching and make sure to subscribe to upnext sports for more basketball content like this.
