Draymond Green is Who We Thought He Was
Eventually, people reveal who they are such that there can be no doubt about who they are. Some people are skillful at carefully crafting an image, but the truth inevitably comes out. If you are a bully who has anger control/emotional control issues, then the spin control narrative that you "need to play with an edge to be successful" will eventually be shattered by the reality that you don't have an edge--you have anger control/emotional control issues.
Draymond Green has been a polarizing figure for a long time. Some people claim that he is a smart and great player who has been indispensable to Golden State's success. I have consistently asserted that Green "is a very good player who can have a positive impact, but at the core he is an undersized power forward who is not a scoring threat and who can be overpowered by any big player who has a modicum of skill. There is no way that Green could be the best player on a playoff team, and no one would have ever heard of him if he had not been blessed to play with multiple All-Star caliber players throughout his career." I have also observed that Green "is permitted to repeatedly throw opposing players to the ground, hit opposing players with forearms and/or elbows aimed above the neck, and instigate confrontations while only being punished with one technical foul. As ABC's Jeff Van Gundy has repeatedly noted, there is a bizarre double standard that works in Green's favor: Green is expected to behave poorly, so he is therefore given a benefit of the doubt that is not given to players who are more mild-mannered."
In short, Green is a very good player, but he is also overrated, and he has anger control/emotional control issues that have yet to be addressed because his conduct is not regulated by the league or by his team.
The video of Green walking up to his teammate Jordan Poole in a practice and then, after Poole lightly shoved him, hitting Poole in the face with a vicious closed-fist punch that visibly wobbled Poole confirms much of what I have said about Green. The only point to add is that bullies who have anger control/emotional control issues tend to pick on smaller people, as was the case with this battery (legally, assault is threatening to hit someone, while battery is actually hitting someone--Green may have committed assault, but there is no question that he committed battery). Green may be willing to commit a dirty foul against anyone, but I am not sure that he would walk up to someone his own size and punch him in the face.
Now that the video has been leaked to the public, it will be interesting to see what the Warriors and the NBA do. There is a big difference between a practice skirmish or even a practice fight, and a player delivering a punch with tremendous force to his teammate's face.
Green should be suspended without pay for a large number of games. The NBA excels at detecting which way public opinion winds are blowing, so how media members (and social media commenters) react to Green's battery of Poole will probably play a significant role in determining the extent of the discipline that Green receives--but, whatever, the outcome, the truth about who Green is and what he is about is very clear. Some of us have understood the truth for a while, but perhaps others needed the video evidence.
Labels: Draymond Green, Golden State Warriors, Jordan Poole
posted by David Friedman @ 4:27 PM
