Draymond Green. What a guy. The man has unresolved issues unbeknownst to those of us on the outside. All anyone really knows is he channels those issues into a competitive spirit on the basketball court that’s made him one of the best, most versatile defenders in the history of the sport. Draymond has been a key cog in four Golden State Warriors championship teams.
However, his goon-ish antics, loud personality and awkward/often low-key malicious physicality manifest on the hardwood past the point of that classic “Love Him If He’s On Your Team, Hate Him If He Isn’t” prototype. Draymond needed to be called out and needed the NBA taken away from him for a longer period of time many years before the incident with Jusuf Nurkic:
Draymond has been ejected after flagrant foul on Nurkić pic.twitter.com/RmrLU5tdw8
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) December 13, 2023
Because alleged unintentional, multiple instances of targeting dudes’ crotches among many other offenses before this apparently weren’t enough. Draymond slept right through the raging alarm of a wake-up call that was being suspended for a game during the NBA Finals.
Draymond’s dumba*sery comes with the territory at a certain point. His antics are annoying as f*ck at best. Often toxic. Explosively violent at worst. Welp. At least now, at age 33, he’s coming to his senses somewhat. The indefinite suspension he was on lasted all of 12 games before he was reinstated. That was long enough for him to go to NBA commissioner Adam Silver with his plans to retire altogether.
“I told him ‘I’m going to retire’”
—@Money23Green opens up about his conversation with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver after the Jusuf Nurkić incident pic.twitter.com/kgJrnJzBS7
— The Volume (@TheVolumeSports) January 8, 2024
It’s wild that Draymond figured it best to not work on himself, and instead just give up on the game he’s tied his entire identity to. I feel like that would’ve only made things worse, as people would be relentless in pestering him for being a quitter. Here was Silver’s response once Draymond dropped the planned retirement bomb on him:
“Ah, you’re making a very rash decision. And I won’t let you do that.”
Draymond expressed gratitude for having a leader like Silver in his post who cares more about the well-being of players than punishing them. I guess that can be helpful to a point. Just feels like maybe knuckleheads like Draymond and Ja Morant could’ve been better disciplined by Silver. But hey, overall, I guess that’d be the side of caution to err on if anything.
But then the other revelation from Draymond was that Warriors coach Steve Kerr came to visit him at his house once the suspension hit. They’ve been through the “highest highs and lowest lows” as Draymond explains, and this was a low point. Kerr must not have known what to do anymore with him. Draymond must have finally broke. They both cried.
Draymond Green disclosed that Steve Kerr visited him a few weeks back, during which time they shared an emotional moment, crying together in the yard 😢
(🎥 @TheVolumeSports )
— NBACentral (@TheDunkCentral) January 8, 2024
Steve Kerr told Draymond he wants him to "end this the right way.”
(via The Draymond Green Show, @TheVolumeSports) pic.twitter.com/qgqEksXq5G
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) January 8, 2024
For all the years I’ve spent hating on Draymond Green, he does keep it real, he is an excellent podcaster from what I’ve heard, and I think he’ll bring a lot as a media member/commentator once he’s finished playing. Any goodwill he built up through those avenues was nearly squandered. That Nurkic punch was ugly. Like, if nothing changed after that? Damn. Would be hard to want to see Draymond in the public eye/around the NBA in any capacity in the coming years. He’d just always be that do*che canoe on Golden State’s many championship squads.
So good for Draymond, I guess, getting the help that he evidently needed. Good on Kerr for checking in on him and not abandoning him at his lowest point when it could’ve been pretty easy to. If I’d tried for years to get through to Draymond and he was still being that ignorant, I’d have a hard time giving him one more shot.
Sometimes you just gotta get vulnerable, cry it out, and hug it out. Time will tell if Draymond truly is a changed man, or if he’s in PR damage control mode before he regresses back to his familiar ways. Old habits die hard, as they say.
