Getty Draymond Green reacts during Game 2 of the 2022 NBA Finals between the Golden State Warriors and the Boston Celtics.
One week has passed since Draymond Green’s punch to the face of teammate Jordan Poole springboarded the Golden State Warriors back into the spotlight. And while the team is carrying on in preparation for opening night of the 2022-23 campaign, it’s anyone’s guess what kind of long-term impact the incident will have.
In the immediate aftermath of the scuffle, team president Bob Myers and head coach Steve Kerr expressed confidence that the Dubs train would remain affixed to the tracks. And now, Green’s mom has chimed in with a similar assertion.
“They can get beyond this. Anything is fixable!” Mary Babers Green tweeted on Tuesday (before deactivating her account several hours later). “Everything ain’t always what you think you see!”
However, her next tweet on the subject was significantly more controversial, and fans let her know as much in short order.
Draymond’s Mom Issues Stunning Defense of Her Son
After Babers Green more or less echoed the sentiments of Warriors decision-makers, one commenter wasn’t about to let her or her son off the hook. “Ma’am. With all due respect, I saw your son sucker punch his teammate w/ my own eyes on that clip,” tweeted the fan.
That prompted the following response from Babers Green:
“That wasn’t a Sucker punch. Dray didn’t aggressively go to Poole. His hands were down. Man to Man you go over to talk (to ask what’s up, what you say)! Got shoved and reacted.. End of story!”
Of course, people who saw the leaked footage of the altercation between Green and his younger (and much smaller) teammate tend to disagree with that accounting of events. In the clip, Green is shown aggressively moving in Poole’s direction and, eventually, bumping into his chest and moving him backward as he spoke in a manner that we’ll generously refer to as unfriendly.
Poole then pushes Green off of his body and out of his personal space, at which point the four-time All-Star sent Poole to the ground with the unexpected punch.
This is essentially what fans had been tweeting back at Babers Green after she commented on the situation.
Fans Clap Back at Babers Green
Here are some of the tweets that came back at Draymond’s mom after she offered her assessment of the situation. Needless to say, opinions were largely of the dissenting variety.
“A man putting his entire body on yours and breathing down your neck ain’t aggressive? Poole just suppose to let dray do this to him? You gotta be honest with your self here Mary,” wrote one fan.
“This is called enabling. And it’s even more disappointing and pathetic given that the man in question is 32, not some emotional reactive teenager,” added a second commenter.
“Ma’am, what do you do if someone walked up to you, invaded your personal space and was trying to intimidate you? Laugh? Your son was wrong and it’s ok to own up to that,” a third fan wrote.
Not everyone was looking to pile on Baber Green, though; a handful of tweeters even came to her defense.
“Y’all in these comments being disrespectful to someone’s mother is low even for y’all. You can disagree all you want but show some respect. Y’all going to bat for a player none of y’all ever meeting. Speaking for Jp like you know him. You can debate with respect,” one such commenter wrote.