FANS ARE VERY SICK OF DRAYMOND GREEN AS A BULLY, BUT THE NBA ALLOWS HIS ACT
Compile the bad-boy totals — more technical fouls and more flagrants will lead to his suspension from the playoffs — and what happened to league guidance after he was tossed indefinitely last season?
Maybe the wolf will ravage him in the Kia ad. That might be the only way to discharge Draymond Green from the NBA postseason, where on Sunday night, he jumped in the air and flattened Fred VanVleet with a wicked forearm to his neck and later elbowed Alperen Sengun in the face, continuing his sick devastation of European-born centers including Jusuf Nurkic, Rudy Gobert and Domantas Sabonis.
He has four technical fouls and two flagrants after one series and should have been ejected twice, such as when he grabbed Jalen Green by the braids and pulled him down. Draymond is a kill-shot artist, making us wonder if playoff basketball has become gang warfare. If he pulled these stunts on the streets, he’d be in jail. And yet, the league continues to let him play villain, one season after suspending him five games for the Gobert chokehold and suspending him indefinitely for smashing Nurkic in the face. Commissioner Adam Silver summoned him for an important meeting.
"I said I don't want to do this anymore," Green said. "This doesn't serve me anymore.”
Well, he has returned as a bully who is woefully served by pummeling opponents with UFC chaos. He took out the Houston Rockets in seven games with one violent act after another, two more Sunday in a 103-89 victory. I covered basketball in the last century and have seen the ugliest warfare. This man-child fires back at foes, teammates and any supervisor in his way. Silver should huddle with him again before he turns the Minnesota Timberwolves — including Gobert, coming off the performance of his life — into Pillsbury Doughboys. Three more technicals or one Flagrant 2 call will earn Green a one-game suspension. If he picks up more, there could be more removals.
He might not make it through the next series. We all recall when he kicked LeBron James in the crown jewels and helped cost the Warriors a second title in 2017, costing them a shot at four straight championships. He has not learned. Friday night, when his team was shellacked at home, Green felt the need to apologize. Not for his behavior, obviously. He thought he was pouting and needed to shine in Game 7.
His coach, Steve Kerr, is a good human being who allows himself to be staggered by Green’s force. His friend, Steph Curry, always has bought into the Dray Sway. No one of any influence tells him to stop. The NBA is in for more horrible times.
“People I trust in most, we had some heart-to-hearts after last game,” Green said. My wife. One of my closest friends. My barber, one of my closest friends. Coach (Tom) Izzo. And I just, I pouted way too much last game. So I spent the last two days embarrassed at just, what I gave to the game, what I gave to the world. I was embarrassed, so I been dying since the last game ended to get out on the floor and prove who I am. One thing about this league, you’re never done proving who you are until you’re done. Completely finished.”
Does he not realize he is finished? As someone a fan can admire? “Poise, I think I delivered that and gave our guys something to follow,” Green said. “What I gave them last game to follow, they followed and that’s why we got bullied. But I think I gave them something different to follow today. That was the message, that was the goal.”
This is a time to highlight Buddy Hield for scoring 33 points with nine 3-pointers. He is the team’s self-proclaimed “Alfred” the butler when Jimmy Butler calls himself “Robin” and refers to Steph Curry as “Batman.” His career milestone happened when Curry struggled with his shot before ending with 22 points. "This was not just a lights-out shooting performance for Buddy," Kerr said. "It was a two-way performance. I thought his defense was fantastic."
“Just trying to seize the moment and relish the moment and just be in the moment at the same time,” said Hield, who told Butler that he’s the new Robin. “Just trying to be myself. But tonight was fun.”
Instead, we focus on the one human being who could trash it all. At a team meeting Saturday, Green was asked to speak. “They wanted me to speak, and I had a lot to say,” Green said. “Most importantly was calling myself out. You can’t go into a Game 7 expecting guys to rally off the game we had before and not address it. So, I wanted to address that. “You can’t be a leader and not be accountable,” Green said. “You call other guys out, well, when their (expletive) stinks, you better say when yours does too.”
Said Curry: “It was a level of awareness that matters at this stage of our careers. Draymond started with himself, talking about having a level of poise and composure.”
Said Kerr: “I think his emotional stability tonight, just being poised from the start, I thought it set a great tone.”
The TNT play-by-play announcer, Brian Anderson, and color analyst Stan Van Gundy did not crush Green on the game broadcast. Remember, Green has played a role on the network. ESPN’s Doris Burke and Mike Breen took him apart Friday.
“Over the last three to four weeks, what have I said about Draymond Green?” Burke said. “That it feels sometimes like he’s walking that edge again, which we’ve seen historically. That, to me, is a case in point of what I’m talking about.”
“He crosses the line over and over,” Breen said. And it hurts him — and it hurts the team. And we get started with a possible flagrant foul here in such an important game.”
“How many guys get this kind of leash, in the league, to get a Flagrant 1 and continue the discussion?” Burke said. “And I would stand by this, Mike. Over the history of Draymond’s career, it feels like there’s been a double standard.”
Doesn’t matter. Whatever Silver thinks he accomplished last season is forgotten. “(Expletive) you Draymond!” the fans chanted in Houston, as they will in Minneapolis.
“I listened to (Tupac Shakur’s) ‘Check Out Time’ on the way to the game the other day, and that was the exact mindset I had going into that game,” Green said. “I wanted to change it up today, to Brent Faiyaz, SZA and 90’s R&B. Completely changed it up.”
God, aren’t we proud of him. The playoffs have taken on a tone of gross physicality, but never to the level of Green.
Anyone denying the rise of the Cleveland Cavaliers shouldn’t be inquiring about the Game 1 absence of Darius Garland. Whether he can play defense or not — Tyler Herro says no — Garland is needed after a Game 1 surprise in the Eastern Conference. While Donovan Mitchell was 1 for 11 from beyond the arc, the Indiana Pacers hit three-pointers and were greeted after a 121-112 victory by happy coach Rick Carlisle — and not John Haliburton, Tyrese’s father, who is banned. Ty Jerome alone will not win a title. The Pacers reached the conference finals last year, remember.
“Just coming out big and bringing energy from start for finish,” said Tyrese. “They are the No. 1 team in the conference with an unbelievable crowd. We grew the lead.”
The Warriors advance as the low seeds against Minnesota, which will have six nights off before the series. It’s hard to see Curry, Butler and Green surviving when Anthony Edwards and the rejuvenated Gobert are supercharged. “That’s the Rudy that can win you championships,’’ said guard Mike Conley, not wondering if Green will choke him. The other West bracket features a battle of two startling MVP candidates: favorite Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic, whose seasons deserve to be celebrated as co-winners.
"I think this is the last on both of our minds," Jokić said. ‘Very different player," Jokić said of Gilgeous-Alexander. "He’s playing on so many levels, speed and so many levels, scorer. And everything looks so easy for him. Even when you have, like, oh, that’s a good defense, it feels so easy for him. He’s amazing with the change of speed, change of rhythm, ball-handling. He can post up guys. He can go by guys. Shooting the ball, mid-range is perfectly — un-guardable basically. A very special player."
Who guards Shai when Jokic will deals with 7-footers in Chet Holmgren and Isaiah Hartenstine? At least Denver management was right, in the short term, for dismissing a championship coach in Mike Malone. The Nuggets won’t be holding a trophy this time with coach David Adelman. “I think the owner ... wanted to change something, to change the energy, and probably he did," Jokic said. "He got the result he was looking for."
If anything continues to germinate more than James Harden’s beard — which needs a barber and a new look — it would be his skanky output in losing Game 7s. Is he truly a Hall of Fame selection? You might think otherwise after he scored seven points against the Nuggets and looked every hour of his 35 years in Denver’s 120-101 mauling. He had nine points for Philadelphia in 2023, which led to his departure to the Clippers. He had 14 points for the Nets in 2021, which led to his departure to the Sixers.
Imagine another former MVP who keeps reeking in big moments? The combination of Harden and Kawhi Leonard fizzled again, which should prompt owner Steve Ballmer to think about a package for Giannis Antetokounmpo. Problem is, he doesn’t have draft capital. He’s stuck. Harden has a $36.4 million player option and should take a pay cut — if he isn’t eliminated. He did not speak to the media, and Leonard was left to say, “I mean, I don’t know right now. I guess we stayed playing at a high level, in a sense. But yeah, it’s a hard question to answer right now.”
The high level is not high enough, thought at least the Clippers lasted longer than the Lakers. “In a Game 7, there are no tactics,” Nicolas Batum said. “It’s who wants it more. They clearly wanted it more than us.”
The league needed Curry and Golden State among the final eight teams. They are traditional in a league of too many new stars. It’s torturous to know Draymond Green never has changed. He’s a creep. The commissioner tolerates him.
It’s his mistake.
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Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.