For Draymond, indefinitely is a long time
Indefinitely? That’s a long time. Maybe not as long as forever — which is a notch or two down the list — but long enough. Especially when your team seems very much to be running out of time.
The NBA responded to Draymond Greens’ punch — or episode if you like dancing around the issue — with a punch of its own.
A haymaker as they used to say on the Friday Night Fights, a knockout punch that knocked Green out of the opportunity to play basketball for well, indefinitely.
And probably knocked his team, the now-bewitched Golden State Warriors, out of a chance to ever again win a championship.
The violation, a term that perhaps sounds more palatable than a blow to the face, came Tuesday night in yet another Warriors loss to the Phoenix Suns, this one 119-116.
Green’s physical play is what helped make him an All-Star. And a pariah. Tuesday he went hard after the ball, smacked the Suns’ Jusuf Nurkic in the face, was called for a flagrant 2 foul and ejected.
Green has been there before, too many times including earlier this season when he was suspended five games for choking Rudy Gobert of the Timberwolves.
And running out of patience, NBA officials are intent on preventing Draymond — suspended four times in the last nine months, six times overall — from going there again.
In its news release Wednesday, the NBA alluded to Green’s “repeated history of unsportsmanlike acts.
Before he’s in a Warriors uniform again, Green must meet certain criteria specified by the NBA. According to The Athletic, he will undergo counseling — remember the film, “Anger Management”? — that will include Green’s agent and representatives from the NBA and Warriors front office.
It has been the intensity and unhinged volatility that helped propel Green, now 33, to a $100 million contract while in the process of propelling the Warriors to four titles. But because he’s possibly lost a step while losing none of his determination, Draymond is more aggressive than allowed within the rules. He’s now compensating for what skill or speed has been lost by a recklessness that now has him on edge and off the court.
Draymond apologized for the way he pummeled Nurkic, who later was understandably irritated by Green’s battering ram maneuver, but Green didn’t complain. He knew well he had been illegally rough. Now, until pardoned by the league, whenever that comes, Draymond may be gone for a week or two.
Green has been more than a star defender and rebounder, through the years an emotional leader, ready to kick bottoms and kick the team into high gear.
His roles as defender and rebounder, and no less importantly willing accomplice to Steph Curry getting balls into the basket, are to be filled by youngsters Jonathan Kuminga, Moses Moody, Brandin Podziemski and Trayce Jackson-Davis.
Immediately after the game, which left them with a 10-13 record, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr said, “We need Draymond. He knows that.”
We all do, but it’s indefinite when they’ll have him again.