Victor Wembanyama was supposed to be the new face of the NBA. On June 13, 2026, on his own floor in San Antonio, the 22-year-old walked straight into the tunnel the moment the final buzzer sounded – skipping the handshake line, refusing to look the Knicks in the eye, and cementing a first Finals appearance that will haunt him for years. Draymond Green watched from afar and had a lot to say about it.

On The Draymond Green Show, Green framed Wembanyama’s immediate exit to the tunnel as a sign of mental defeat. He called it “disheartening.” He called it a leadership failure. And he wasn’t subtle about what he thinks it means for Wembanyama going forward.

“It was disheartening. And I blame it on youth. I blame it on lacking the leader to show them that, hey, this is what you do, not walk off. I blame it on that. I blame it on that. Lacking the leadership, the leader to show them that no, no, no. There’s a way to win and there’s a way to lose.”

Then came the blunter warning, not just about optics, but about what the exit signals psychologically to the team that just beat him:

“There’s a way to win, and there’s a way to lose. And walking off the court, not looking your killer in his eyes, ain’t the way to lose…I hate it. I hate when people do it. And I hated to see those young Spurs do it because I actually think they’re capable of doing something special…and I would urge those young Spurs [to] reach out to Jalen Brunson however you can. Reach out to Karl-Anthony Towns however you can. Reach out to Josh Hart, however you can. You tell [those] dudes ‘congratulations.’”

It was in 1991 that the Bad Boy Pistons refused to shake hands with the Chicago Bulls as Michael Jordan and co. completed the sweep. For decades, it has been one of the ultimate signs of disrespect in sports. Now, the San Antonio Spurs did something similar after losing the 2026 NBA Finals 4-1. Fans and analysts have called them out and even Draymond Green couldn’t let it go.

“Look your killer in the face. You gotta look them in the 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 look me in the face.”

Green argued that winning a title requires more than just talent—it requires “good fortune” (luck, health, bouncing balls, and good karma). By intentionally snubbing an opponent, a young team risks throwing off their energetic alignment and jinxing their future championship windows.

But before breaking down what it all means, it’s worth understanding just how loaded the Knicks-Wembanyama rivalry had become by Game 5 and why walking off without a handshake landed so much harder in this context.

The Knicks hadn’t won a championship in 53 years. When Jalen Brunson and company finally broke that drought, they did it on Wembanyama’s home floor and Wembanyama couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge it. That’s the sting Green couldn’t let go.

Beyond the tunnel exit, the series itself was riddled with heated instances between Wembanyama and the Knicks. In Game 3, Wembanyama shoved Brunson in the back of the neck with both hands, sending him to the floor. No foul was called. The NBA later reviewed the play and confirmed a foul was missed, but declined to upgrade it to a flagrant.

Brunson got up, confronted Wembanyama, and was met with Wembanyama laughing in his face. The two were already adversaries long before Game 5.

Now consider what Wembanyama was absorbing emotionally by the time that buzzer sounded. At 22, in his first Finals, he had watched the Spurs blow a 29-point lead in Game 4, the largest collapse in NBA Finals history and then, in Game 5, led by 16 points with the championship on the line before the Knicks rallied again.

After leading for 72% of the total minutes played in the Finals but still losing 4-1 due to late-game execution lapses, an emotionally overwhelmed Wembanyama shot 1-for-5 in the 4th quarter of Game 5 and immediately stormed into the tunnel upon missing the final buzzer-beater.

On the contrary, Jalen Brunson’s first hug after the final horn was to Spurs head coach Mitch Johnson. Only San Antonio center Luke Kornet was pictured shaking hands with the victorious Knicks players after the game. Johnson and Knicks coach Mike Brown also shook hands.

The irony isn’t lost on anyone who follows Green closely. This is the same man who was suspended for Game 5 of the 2016 Finals after accumulating flagrant foul points, a suspension that gave the Cavaliers the momentum to overcome a 3-1 deficit and win the championship. Green has lived the consequences of letting emotions override composure on the biggest stage. He’s not lecturing from a pedestal, he’s speaking from a scar.

Victor Wembanyama’s response to the loss

Wembanyama didn’t address the handshake snub directly, but he did speak on his emotional state. During his postgame news conference, he detailed lessons learned from his first NBA Finals.

“It’s painful,” Wembanyama said. “But I’m not running away from that. I’m using it to fuel me. It doesn’t compare to anything before. This is the biggest lesson of my life, the biggest learning moment. I can’t tell exactly what the lesson is, but we’re learning from that for sure. I’m learning more than any other time in my life so far.”

He added, “What I’m pissed about is that there’s probably a hundred games before we can be back in the finals. So, I don’t know how to say it in English, but I’m going to have to hold that inside of me and execute for a hundred games.”

Those words reflect a young superstar who intellectually understands the moment but emotionally hadn’t finished processing it when the cameras were still rolling. At 22, in his first Finals, the weight of blowing leads in every single game and coming up empty on a buzzer-beater in his own building proved too much to compartmentalize in real time.

Green’s argument isn’t that the feelings weren’t valid – it’s that expressing them by running off the court only made the Knicks feel bigger and made Wembanyama look smaller.

Wembanyama was celebrated all season as the future face of the league, but faced the most public stumble of his career on the ultimate stage, failing to close out games against a gritty, relentless New York team that broke a 53-year championship drought. On Wemby’s home floor, in front of his own fans.

The talent isn’t the question. It never was. Wembanyama answered one question loudly on Saturday night. He’ll spend the next hundred games trying to answer the other one.