Warriors’ biggest problem isn’t Draymond Green’s suspension

DRAYMOND GREEN WAS submerged up to his waist in ice water. His voice echoed off the gray tiled walls of this dimly lit room as he tried to explain why he continued to find himself in the NBA's crosshairs for his unsportsmanlike actions on the court. Next, after an unimpressive 110-106 win over the Portland Trail Blazers on Dec. 6, Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr was losing patience, suggesting changes to the team's core might be necessary as she continued to struggle throughout the premiere. quarter of the season.

And yet Green did not shiver. Not once.

If he felt anything – the freezing water, the worry that this series he and his franchise had been a part of was finally coming to an end – he didn't show it.

“You don't become what I became if you can't control your emotions,” Green told ESPN after his fourth game back from a five-game suspension for choking Rudy Gobert. “You don’t win four championships if you can’t control your emotions.

“What I like the most is the opportunity to prove myself again. That's how I cope. Like, 'Oh, they doubt you again, they put you back question. They question your integrity.' As someone who has had to prove himself all his life, this is familiar territory.”

It was the epitome of green. Competitive. Of defiance. The rough edges that the Warriors can neither live without nor truly sand down. It was how he defined himself in the NBA – a mentality he was determined to uphold for as long as he could.

“We built this thing from the ground up. It's our baby. You don't let your baby go,” Green continued. “You fight to keep it going as long as you can. One of the main ingredients to maintaining that is respect. As soon as you lose respect, the fight is over.”

The challenge – or rather the “fight” as he saw it that night – was to prove he could control his behavior and stay on the field for a team that desperately needed him.

“When I’m not on the field, 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 have to put your ego aside. You have to put your pride aside. You even have to put your pride aside. in a sense, you, as a human being, set aside.

A week later, as his team faced Devin Booker and the Phoenix Suns, Green tangled with Suns center Jusuf Nurkic along the sideline. With Nurkic's hand on his hip, Green spun, flailed and nailed the 7-foot cross in the face, knocking the big man to the ground. Green later said he was trying to foul, that his intention was not to hit, that he understood the ejection and the blatant call at 2.

The NBA didn't buy it. The next day, the league suspended him indefinitely. This is Green's fourth suspension in less than two years.

INDEFINITELY, AS IN Green will have to meet certain league and team requirements to return, according to ESPN's Adrian Wojnarowski.

Indefinitely. This is the line the NBA will not cross.

Indefinitely. Because his future in the championship depends on it.

Although sources maintain there is still significant support for Green within the Warriors organization, patience within the league office has clearly withered.

After Green hit teammate Jordan Poole in practice last year, the league took into account the Warriors' history and leadership and allowed them to handle the matter internally. If Kerr, it was thought, had been the target of a punch from Chicago Bulls teammate Michael Jordan as a player, then general manager Bob Myers and owner Joe Lacob thought they could handle the situation. appropriately internally, the league would grant them this latitude. It was not an easy decision.

According to sources familiar with the matter, some voices within the organization and within the league office believed Green should have received a harsher punishment than the team-imposed week.

This latitude has now disappeared.

Hours before the NBA imposed the indefinite suspension, Green told ESPN that he intended to call Nurkic to apologize for going online on the spot and reiterated that he didn't mean to hit him. He said he was trying to sell a bad decision — that Nurkic was holding his hip — and that he “waved.”

“I did things that took me out of the game, and all those things I stood on,” he said. “I don't back down on these things. I don't back down on something because of what a suspension may or may not be. I am not that person. I really am the person I say I am. I apologize only for things if I didn't mean to do them. I don't apologize just to save the day. That's not who I am.

“But I didn’t mean to, that’s why I wanted to apologise.”

Green is one of the most fascinating characters in the NBA. He is passionate when he defends himself and tries to explain his behavior with each incident.

Either the NBA doesn't want to hear it anymore, or it doesn't believe it. Regardless, he just wants the violent altercations, the excuses, the defenses to stop.

No one can guarantee that this will be the case.

“I can’t guarantee that,” Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy said. “I can just say that we will continue to do what we need to do to help him.”

GREEN LOOKED AT IT video of the incident with Gobert on his phone as soon as he returned to the locker room the night it happened.

He was dismayed.

“When I saw it again, I said, ‘Damn, I held it a lot longer than I thought I would at that point,’” Green said. “But the reality is, in those moments, you don't know what time it is. You have no sense of time.”

He compared it to the intensity of Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals, when neither the Warriors nor the Cleveland Cavaliers scored for three minutes and 46 seconds.

“I had no idea,” he said. “We have no sense of time during these things. It's on the spur of the moment. Everything moves, everything happens.”

Green said he spoke in depth about the incident with Gobert with Stephen Curry. He said he tried to explain how he lost track of time and place.

“That’s the conversation we had,” Curry told ESPN. “I said to myself, 'I worry less about what you did, and more about why and how it happened.'

“We've been together so long that he's told me about a lot of things that happened to him personally along the way. There are a lot of stressors. … But we all breathe life because of him. I don't I don't know anyone who can replace that. He's such a barometer of how we play, of our motivation. His effect on the room is strong. So it's a blessing and a curse.”

And, after 18 expulsions and six suspensions, it is this advantage with which the NBA now forces him to reckon.

CHIEF OF NBA OPERATIONS Joe Dumars has been one of the main arbiters of Green's incidents in recent years. The former Detroit Pistons great also knew Green for most of his adult life.

“Joe D. is also someone I always call for advice,” Green said. “In life, when it comes to basketball, I will always call him for advice because he has been a father figure in my life since I was 16 years old.

“That's someone in my life who will tell me straight what they think. That was bulls—. That was bulls—. That thing you did right. That thing you Didn’t do well.”

Dumars was quite clear in his message to Green on Wednesday: these incidents must stop.

Green wouldn't say much about his reaction to the indefinite suspension other than that he was “processing” it.

“We understand that punishment will take place,” Dunleavy said. “But it’s also about helping someone. [The NBA] 100 percent agree. Draymond too.”

Curry had a similar message for himself after the Gobert incident.

“Steph just told me, 'Look, you're going to do what you do because it's your role. But we need your performance,'” Green recalled. “'But I'm not going to tell you how to be you because I can't do that. I'm not going to tell you to change. I'm only going to tell you, whatever you need to do, we need you.' Field. I need you on the ground. “

“I might appreciate that because I'm never going to go to Steph and say, 'Hey, man, we need you to stop shooting.'”

There is a certain self-awareness in Green's explanation. But there is also a blindness in him.

The Warriors don't just need him to stay on the court. They need him to understand why he can't.