Getty Draymond Green of the Warriors
It has been nearly a week since Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green was reinstated after his NBA suspension, which spanned 12 games and was innovative in that it focused more on counseling and Green’s mental health than on being purely punitive. But since he has been back with the Warriors, something odd has happened: Green still has not played.
He is healthy. The Warriors are struggling. They had lost six of eight before knocking off the Bulls in Chicago on Friday. And Green was still not on the floor, despite having only undergone a suspension, not an injury.
On Sirius XM NBA Radio’s Starting Lineup, former NBA player Brian Scalabrine—who once coached Green on the Warriors staff in 2013-14—was not happy about it.
“They’re noncompetitive. They have no fight. And they don’t play any defense,” Scalabrine said, sarcastically referring to Green. “Now if only they had a competitive, fighting, Defensive Player of the Year sitting around here, they’d be fine. It’s unbelievable that he is not playing. … Even if he didn’t touch a basketball, he doesn’t shoot anyways. You’re telling me that he couldn’t just run the mountains and stuff like that? Get on the Peloton. Whatever you had to do.”
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Draymond Green Missed Last 3 Games for Warriors
Green was last seen on an NBA court on December 12, when he took a swing at Suns center Jusuf Nurkic, a month after he had been suspended five games for putting Minnesota center Rudy Gobert into a chokehold. Green was suspended the next day by the NBA for an “indefinite” amount of time. During his time away, Green underwent counseling until he was deemed fit to return by the league.
Scalabrine’s co-host, longtime NBA reporter Frank Isola, agreed that Green should have kept himself in shape and should be playing.
“Why isn’t this guy who hurt his team by his actions in a game, did not keep himself ready to play?” Isola said. “And I don’t want to hear, I don’t care how much counseling he got, give me a break. He could have done counseling eight hours a day. He still could set aside an hour to train. It’s outrageous. And nobody makes a big deal of it. He’s already been suspended five games, he then was suspended 12. That’s 17.”
Reinstatement Came on January 7
Green’s reinstatement came on January 7, when the Warriors played—and lost to—the Raptors by 15 at home. They lost by 36 in their next game, against the Pelicans. That is what might be most troublesome about his absence. While Green is not injured, he has taken an extra three games off, and is getting paid for them. Meanwhile, the Warriors are struggling.
Golden State is 18-20 and would currently be out of both the playoffs and the play-in tournament. Green, who signed a four-year, $100 million contract in the offseason, has played just 15 games.
“The Warriors are in turmoil, all those people paid their money to go to the game and they watch a noncompetitive game while Draymond Green sits there on the sideline. … What are we doing here? What are we doing?” Scalabrine wondered.
Green, for his part, has vowed to change his approach—specifically, the violent “antics” for which he has come to be known.
“Antics isn’t something that got me here, and so when I look back on these situations it’s like, ‘Can you remove the antics?’ I’m very confident I can remove the antics,” Green said in meeting with the media this week, “and I’m very confident that if I do remove the antics, no one’s worried about how I play the game of basketball.”