Rising Houston Rockets star: Sharife Cooper ‘was mad at me’ for bailing on Auburn

Rising Houston Rockets star Jalen Green admitted to Los Angeles Clippers star Paul George’s “Podcast P” that Sharife Cooper was mad at him for bailing on the Auburn basketball program and choosing to play for the G-League’s Ignite team during the 2020-21 season.

“I think I was going to go to Auburn,” Green prefaced before saying, “I was going to play with Sharife Cooper. I bailed on him last second. He was mad at me. He was on my phone like, ‘Bro, what are you doing? I just had it set up for you.’ It was super awkward.”

Green went on to say that his relationship with the former Auburn basketball star is good now. Still, Tiger fans can only hear this and continue to seethe at the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic, Chuck Person’s suspension, and Green’s decision to go to the G-League completely sabotaged the 2020-21 season.

Jalen Green is now co-starring with a former Auburn basketball star in Houston

Green may have dodged playing on the Plains during his collegiate career in order to earn money in the G-League — since, remember, that was the final season before the NCAA allowed players to collect revenue for their NIL. Now, though, he plays with one of the greatest Auburn basketball products to have ever donned the orange and blue: Jabari Smith.

Green and Smith are the driving force behind the Rockets, who could be due to make massive changes during the NBA offseason. Even if Houston does sign James Harden as expected, any other win-now moves the team makes likely won’t compromise Green and Smith’s standing in the Rockets’ pecking order. If anything, the former Tigers great and almost Tigers great figure to take steps forward should Houston bring in a dynamic playmaker like Harden to run the offense.

While Green didn’t get to co-star with Cooper at the Auburn Arena, he now gets to co-star alongside an Auburn man whose heart is very much still on the Plains.