NBA Suspends Draymond Green for Five Games for "Unsportsmanlike and Dangerous" Conduct
The NBA suspended Draymond Green for five games "for escalating an on-court altercation and forcibly grabbing Minnesota
Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert around the neck in an unsportsmanlike
and dangerous manner." The incident happened during the opening moments of Minnesota's 104-101 win versus Golden State on Tuesday night. Green, Klay Thompson, and Minnesota's Jaden McDaniels were ejected from the game; the NBA subsequently fined Thompson, McDaniels, and Gobert $25,000 each for the incident that began with Thompson and McDaniels pulling each other's jerseys, continued with Gobert wrapping up Thompson, and then escalated out of control when Green put Gobert in a chokehold.
Don't hold your breath waiting for Green to apologize or express remorse; he has been unrepentant about his anger management issues and violent behavior throughout his career, encouraged by the NBA's reluctance to impose sufficient consequences to inspire him to seek help to improve his conduct.
After Green stomped on Sacramento's Domantas Sabonis while Sabonis was lying on the court during game two of the 2023 first round playoff series featuring Golden State versus Sacramento, I provided this commentary about Green:
After the game, an unrepentant Green took no responsibility for his actions and blamed Sabonis for everything. Green has a penchant for striking people when they are not looking or when they are lying on the ground. He fancies himself to be a tough guy, but I cannot recall ever seeing him square up face to face and challenge a player who is his size or bigger; he likes to pick on people who are smaller, or who are in compromised positions.
I do not condone fighting in basketball games, but it would be fascinating to teleport Green to earlier eras when fighting in NBA games was much more tolerated. I rather doubt that Green would square off against Charles Oakley, Maurice Lucas, or Willis Reed--and I think that Green would get a most unpleasant surprise if he believed that smaller guys like Alvin Robertson or Calvin Murphy would be easy targets for bullying. Green is a classic "hold me back" guy who runs his mouth, takes cheap shots, and knows that he is not going to have to fight a grown man on even terms.
Green appears to have serious emotional issues that negatively impact his behavior, and hurt his team's chances to win. I have no patience for anyone who suggests that the Warriors would have won the 2016 NBA Finals if Green had not been suspended for game five, and I have no patience for anyone who suggests that the Warriors would have beaten the Kings last night if Green had not been ejected. Being suspended and ejected is an essential part of who Green is. If you posit that Green's defense, rebounding, and passing help the Warriors to win, then you also have to accept that Green's emotional volatility damages the Warriors and hurts their winning chances. The good, the bad, and the ugly are all part of the Draymond Green experience.
The NBA suspended Green one game for the Sabonis stomp, and that punishment clearly was not enough to curb Green's ongoing anger management issues. When David Stern served as the NBA's Commissioner, he made it clear that persistent improper conduct--whether that conduct consisted of illegal drug use, dirty plays, or anything else--would result in a one way ticket out of the league. Adam Silver seems to want to be a "kinder, gentler" Commissioner, but that results in the escalation of improper conduct because perpetrators feel immune from justice. After Green punched out his then-teammate Jordan Poole prior to last season, I noted that 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." During the 2022 NBA Finals, I expressed disappointment with the extent that the NBA tolerates (and thus encourages) Green's misconduct:
It is not surprising that the Warriors responded to their game one loss by being more energetic and physical in game two, but it is surprising that Draymond 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. Had another player fouled a three point shooter, landed on top of the shooter, rested his legs on the opposing player, and then grabbed the opposing player's shorts after the opposing player pushed his legs aside--as Green did to Jaylen Brown late in the second quarter--that player would have received a technical foul; unfortunately, because Green was the offender here and he had already received a technical foul, the referees assessed no penalty. Basically, after Green received his first technical foul he had a license to commit any mayhem short of a flagrant foul without being penalized. In the good old days, the game was more physical than this and yet also more sensibly officiated: players had a lot contact when the ball was live, but dead ball contact was not tolerated, and the issuance of a first technical foul was not a license to commit future mayhem but a warning that you are one false step away from being ejected.
It is worth adding that even though Green is highly compensated and benefits from double standards that favor him, he has complained that there are double standards that discriminate against athletes, a contention that Marcellus Wiley brilliantly refuted:
"What's happening is Draymond is confusing what a lot of people are confusing: double standard with different worlds...Double standard implies that you're in the same world...I understand why people get confused, but the truth is we're in two different realities. Ask Michael Jordan, who is an owner. We [pro athletes] are employees, brother. I know we are glorified employees...[80,000] people showed up to just watch me work and not 80,000 people showed up at everybody's job/employment. But what happens from that perspective is you start to get a God complex. You start to lose your way. You start to realize that maybe I am not the same as other employees. Draymond Green and others need some real world friends to understand perspective. Because, when you are an employee there are two names on your check: yours, and whoever is paying you. You guys don't live in the same reality. It's just that simple. So, if you don't like bosses, be a boss--simple as that. Oh, you can't be a boss. Well, then, being a boss comes with its perks, comes with its privileges." Wiley then points out that salaries in the major sports leagues--the NBA, the NFL, MLB--have soared in the past decade, far outpacing inflation. He correctly notes that this is a major way that owners show respect to employees. He asks players like Green who claim to be disrespected, "What are your measurements? What are your metrics? This metric right here is undeniable. They are showing you respect."
Green is the poster child for athletes who are paid far more than they could ever earn doing anything else, and who have developed a sense of entitlement without a corresponding sense of responsibility regarding their conduct. If Green did not have the NBA to protect him, there is a strong possibility that he would be in jail--or dead--as a consequence of his inability to control his anger. Sadly, neither of those possibilities can be ruled out if he does not seek help. Gobert referred to Green as a "clown" and I can understand why he feels that way, but this is no laughing matter: Green needs help both to protect others and to protect himself, because his behavior goes well beyond just being a physical player. In the sense that Green is overrated, Gobert is correct: without the injured Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson around to carry the load, the Warriors went 15-50 in 2019-20 as Green averaged 8.0 ppg on .389 field goal shooting while looking very much like a role player and very little like the Hall of Famer he is purported to be. Green seems to get very angry when his limitations as a player are pointed out, but that does not change the reality that he is a limited player whose specific talents can be helpful for a team already stacked with talent but don't make much impact on winning otherwise.
Labels: Draymond Green, Golden State Warriors, Minnesota Timberwolves, Rudy Gobert
posted by David Friedman @ 8:20 PM
