Steve Kerr says Draymond Green’s indefinite suspension ‘makes sense.’ Shaq disagrees
A day after the NBA suspended Draymond Green indefinitely for hitting Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkic in the face, the Golden State Warriors said they are still committed to the forward.
Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. told reporters at UCLA during the team’s shootaround ahead of Thursday night’s game against the Clippers at Crypto.com Arena that Green will remain with the team for the most part while serving his suspension.
“We’re not jettisoning the guy off somewhere,” Dunleavy said of Green, who’s in the first year of a four-year, $100-million contract.
“He’s been here for a long time, he’s hung a ton of banners and means so much to this organization. ... This is about turning this thing into a positive and getting better. So I think that happens and, you know, we feel really good because, again, his play has been terrific. It’s just been his lack of availability that’s not been great, and we wanna make that better.”
Green was suspended Wednesday after receiving a Flagrant 2 foul and ejection for striking Nurkic during a 119-116 loss in Phoenix the previous night. According to a league statement announcing the move, the punishment “takes into account Green’s repeated history of unsportsmanlike acts” and Green “will be required to meet certain league and team conditions before he returns to play.”
Dunleavy reiterated that no timetable has been set for Green’s return.
“He’ll be back when, you know, it’s the right time,” said Dunleavy, who added that Green, the Warriors and the NBA will work together to make that determination.
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Warriors coach Steve Kerr told reporters Thursday that the indefinite suspension “makes sense.” Kerr referenced other incidents involving Green that have occurred over the past 14 months — including Green punching then-teammate Jordan Poole in the face at practice during the 2022 preseason and Green putting Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert in a chokehold during an on-court scuffle Nov. 14. Green was suspended five games by the league for the latter incident.
“To me, this is about more than basketball. It’s about helping Draymond,” Kerr said. “I think it’s an opportunity for Draymond to step away and to make a change in his approach and his life. And that’s not an easy thing to do. That’s not something you say, ‘OK, we’re gonna do five games and then he’s going to be fine,’ right? The league did that, did five games after the incident with Rudy. That’s not the answer, to pick a number.
“The answer is to help Draymond, give him the help he needs. Give him an opportunity to make a change that will not only help him help our team, but help him for the rest of his life. This is not just about an outburst on the court. This is about his life. This is about someone who I believe in, someone I have known for a decade, someone who I love for his loyalty, his commitment, his passion, his love for his teammates, his friends, his family. Trying to help that guy. Because the one who grabbed Rudy, choked Rudy, the one who took a wild flail at Jusuf, the one who punched Jordan [Poole] last year, that’s the guy who has to change and he knows that.”
Joe Dumars, the NBA executive vice president and head of basketball operations, explained the reasoning behind making Green’s suspension indefinite during a Thursday appearance on ESPN’s “First Take.”
“We knew that there would be some level of punishment, but we didn’t want that to be the focus,” Dumars said. “We wanted the focus to be on, ‘How can we help Draymond as well?’ And we thought indefinite was the best way to do that, so people don’t get caught up on, ‘What’s the number? Is it too low, too high?’
“Indefinite means, get yourself right. We wanna see you at your best. And the best way for you to do that is to get yourself mentally and emotionally back to where you need to be. So that’s how we got to indefinite.”
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Dumars said that Green’s former Warriors teammate Andre Iguodala, who is now the executive director of the NBA players’ union, helped come up with the suspension’s terms.
Green’s latest ejection, his third this season and 18th overall, occurred at the 8:23 mark of the third quarter against the Suns. He had his back to Nurkic, trying to hold off the Bosnian player as the Warriors attempted to inbound the ball. Green turned around quickly while swinging his right arm, hitting Nurkic in the face and sending him to the floor.
Speaking to reporters after the game, Green apologized for the incident and said he didn’t mean to make contact with Nurkic.
“I’m not one to apologize for things I meant to do,” Green said. “But I do apologize to Jusuf. Even though I didn’t intend to hit him, I sell calls with my arms. I don’t fall to sell a call. I’m not a flopper. I was just selling the call because he was grabbing and pulling my hip. So, I spun away. And, unfortunately, I hit him.
“So, I apologize to Jusuf because I didn’t intend to hit him.”
Nurkic made reference to the Green-Gobert incident while answering a question about his own run-in with the controversial Warriors player after Tuesday’s game.
“I’m glad he [did] not try to choke me,” Nurkic told reporters. “But at the same time it had nothing to do with basketball, man. I’m just out there trying to play basketball, you know, they’re swinging. ... Hopefully whatever he got in his life, it’ll get better.”
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Gobert spoke about Green with ESPN on Thursday night.
“I have empathy for him,” Gobert said. “You see somebody that’s not well inside and suffering. You take away the game and all that, and you want somebody to be well and be able to do what we do every night and compete and be happy.”
He added: “You don’t want someone to get badly hurt. You’ve got to fix that. That’s it.”
NBA legend and TNT basketball analyst Shaquille O’Neal told TMZ on Thursday that he thinks Green should have been suspended for only two games because the punch didn’t appear intentional to him.
“I don’t think Draymond said, ‘Hey, I’m gonna punch this guy just ‘cause he’s pulling my jersey,’” the former Lakers star said. “He was just trying to spin around — maybe he thought the guy wasn’t in close proximity, but he hit him. Listen, he’s a fiery player, he’s an honest player. It’s unfortunate that this happened, but I’m not gonna sit here and say he needs 10, he needs 15 games.”
Last month, O’Neal spoke to The Times about Green’s actions against Gobert. “He probably shouldn’t have did it,” O’Neal said, “but WWSD, what would Shaq do? Shaq would’ve did the same thing.”
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Fellow former NBA star and current TNT analyst Charles Barkley weighed in on the suspension Wednesday on “King Charles,” the CNN show he hosts with Gayle King.
“I’m surprised it’s indefinite,” Barkley said. “I thought it would be a big number ‘cause he was just suspended for five games. Indefinite makes me — I don’t even know what that really means, honestly. But it sounds to me like they’re gonna make him undergo some type of counseling.”
When King tried pointing out that she thought it looked like Green didn’t intend to hit Nurkic, Barkley interjected: “He didn’t slap him — he punched him.”
“Listen, everybody likes Draymond,” Barkley added later. “But at some point, if you keep doing stupid stuff, we can’t keep saying he’s a good dude.”
Phoenix star Kevin Durant, who played with Green on the Warriors from 2016 to 2019, was asked about his former teammate’s foul on Nurkic and indefinite suspension Wednesday night following the Suns’ 116-112 loss to the Brooklyn Nets.
“Yeah, that was insane to see,” Durant said of the incident Tuesday. “Glad Nurk is all right. Never seen that before on a basketball court, in an NBA game. I hope Draymond gets the help he needs. Been incident after incident. I know Draymond and that’s not — he hasn’t been that way when I was around him and coming into the league. So hopefully he gets the help he needs and can get back on the court and put all this stuff behind him.”
Metta Sandiford-Artest, who was known as Ron Artest and Metta World Peace during his NBA playing days, served the longest suspension in NBA history (86 games) for his role in the infamous Malice at the Palace brawl in 2004. He told TMZ on Thursday he’d welcome the opportunity to share with Green what he learned through his experiences.
“Players like him, players like myself, players like [Dennis] Rodman — we wanna see more players like that in the league, players that play with passion but control it,” said Sandiford-Artest, who added that he thinks Green should use his suspension to “kinda understand you made a couple of mistakes and let time take its course.”
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