https://www.si.com/nba/2023/04/19/draymond-green-suspension-overreaction-domantas-sabonis

Sports Illustrated

NBA’s Suspension of Draymond Green Is an Outrageous Overreaction

He is being unfairly punished for his response to Domantas Sabonis’s
grabbing ahold of his leg in Game 2.

Chris Mannix
10 hours ago

The tweet from the NBA communications handle hit just before midnight.

Draymond Green suspended.

I had to check twice to make sure it wasn’t a fake account.

Suspended? Green’s actions late in Game 2 of Sacramento’s win over
Golden State was the talk of radio, TV and podcasts on Tuesday. His
response to his ankle being wrapped up by Kings center Domantas
Sabonis—a stomp to Sabonis’s midsection followed by a Super Mario–like
leap off his stomach—earned him an ejection. Even that was questionable.
A suspension is worse.

Suspended? Really? What a relief Sabonis survived the ordeal. After
instigating the incident by gripping onto Green while he attempted to
take off in transition, Sabonis—a 7'1", 240-pound mountain of a
man—writhed on the floor. Oscar De La Hoya looked less pained after a
liver shot from Bernard Hopkins. Trevor Berbick got up quicker against
Mike Tyson. After the game, ESPN reported Sabonis would get an X-ray to
check for broken ribs. On Wednesday, the Kings listed Sabonis as
questionable for Game 3 with a “sternum contusion.” No word on whether
there was an MRI to suss out any internal injuries.

Suspended? I mean come on, NBA. In announcing the suspension, Joe
Dumars—the ex–Bad Boy turned NBA top cop—said the decision “was based in
part on Green’s history of unsportsmanlike acts.” The shot to the groin
of Steven Adams in 2016. The shot to the groin of LeBron James ... weeks
later in ’16. The elbow to the throat of James Harden two years later.
Not to mention the altercations he has had with teammates (Kevin Durant,
Jordan Poole) that have led to in-house punishment. For years Green has
collected technical fouls as easily as rebounds, which has earned the
ire of the decision-makers in Olympic Tower.

But suspended? Give me a break.

Green’s reaction was wrong. Sabonis went dirty, and Green responded in
kind. With the benefit of limitless replay, it’s easy to say Green
should have wriggled free or even fell down, which if called a technical
foul would have earned Golden State at least one free throw and the
ball. But in the heat of the moment, 40-some odd minutes into an
up-and-down, physical game, reacting the way Green did could be
forgiven. Or at least not excessively punished.

“I’d do the same thing,” Shaquille O’Neal said on TNT. “I really would.
Don’t be grabbing me. Like, if I stay there and just try to run forward,
I’ll fall. You gotta get him up off you. And if you get him up off you
and you’re in the way, you might get stomped on. Was it a dirty play? Of
course it was a dirty play. [But] if you don’t grab me, this won’t happen.”

“What Sabonis did was wrong,” Richard Jefferson said on ESPN. “I would
have kicked him. I don’t know if I would have stomped on him. But I’ve
got to get going. This is the postseason. Sabonis knew what he was doing.”

The NBA is proactive in situations like this. Understandably. The league
doesn’t want to go back to the days of Kevin McHale’s clotheslining Bill
Laimbeer or Larry Bird’s taking a swing at Dr. J. The possibility of
another Malice in the Palace sends shivers up its collective spine.
Green is this generation’s Metta Sandiford-Artest, wildly unpredictable
and requiring special policing.

But this is too much. Golden State already paid a steep price losing
Green for the final seven minutes in Game 2. Now it will have to pay
another. The team is down 2–0 and facing a way better than expected
Kings team brimming with confidence. And the Warriors will have to do it
without their best defender. The NBA could have ended this story
Wednesday. Instead it has made it bigger. And worse.