Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green is getting in trouble so often these days, the media literally can’t keep up.
Green’s latest on-court malpractice, a punch he delivered to Phoenix Suns star Jusuf Nurkić’s head Tuesday night, resulted in an indefinite suspension by the NBA.
No one saw that incident coming, considering Green had just recently returned from a five-game suspension for putting Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert in a chokehold. Green’s latest drama completely surprised ESPN and Ramona Shelburne, who was getting ready to publish a story on Green’s return from the Gobert suspension when he pulled his latest stunt.
According to TheBigLead.com, the incident happened “right before ESPN was set to publish a story by Ramona Shelburne about how Green wasn’t going to hurt his team again.”
“Had Green not punched an opponent this week, Shelburne’s piece would have been your standard image rehab story,” The Big Lead’s Stephen Douglas noted. Shelburne quickly updated the story to reflect Green suspension. ESPN published the revised piece Thursday.
Green’s comments, given what we now know, are unintentionally hilarious.
“When I’m not on the floor, it hurts my team,” Green said. “So for me, it’s going to be more about, ‘What do you have to do as a leader to save this team? You got to put your ego aside. You got to put your pride aside. You got to put, even, in a sense, you as a human being aside.”
Literally days after saying that, Green found himself in trouble again.
Another quote that aged poorly, given that readers know what Green didn’t see coming: “You don’t become what I’ve become if you can’t control your emotions.”
This is certainly not intended as a knock on Shelburne’s “Draymond Green apologizes” piece. It’s not even a knock on Green. At age 33, he is what he is at this point. It’s asking too much to expect more. TNT analyst Kenny Smith recently called out Green for his immaturity.
“At 22, 23, 24 years old, you can keep apologizing,” Smith said. “But at this stage of his career, and a champion, we should be out of the apology stages in his career.”
