Two questions, two answers:
1) What the hell’s the matter with Draymond Green?
Something. Something serious.
2) Why have so many people inside and out of the Golden State Warriors organization lost their minds over the fact that someone made public the video of Green punching teammate Jordan Poole during a recent practice?
Donovan Mitchell complained about it in a since-deleted tweet, writing: “Sending that video out to TMZ is really wack bruh smh.”
Mitchell knows something about struggling to get along with a teammate, but, to my knowledge, he never threw a roundhouse at Rudy Gobert’s head.
But there’s a sentiment in the NBA to protect the locker-room culture.
Some players and coaches believe that a team’s practice inside its own facility is a private time and space, a team’s “home.” Some of those who have spent time inside the Jazz’s home say what happens there should stay on the inside and only the inside. Others disagree, saying that when violence like what happened between Green and Poole is unleashed, wherever and whenever it happens, a bright spotlight should be shined on it. Otherwise, it might be covered up, never to be properly revealed and addressed.
When it does go public, a team’s hand is pressured to act on it in a certain way. The NBA also might get involved, complicating matters further.
But violence in the home is the most important kind to shout out to anyone with ears.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr said: “I’ve been in this league for 30-plus years, I’ve seen all kinds of crazy stuff. When things are kept internally, it’s really almost easy to handle, it’s just so much cleaner and smoother and you can move forward. As soon as things are leaked, now all hell breaks loose and that affects every single player. … We’re having to answer all of these questions and it puts us in a very difficult spot, everybody in a very difficult spot.”
So it does, Steve.
Covering it up and handling it internally might be easier, but it’s not the answer. And when even someone usually as thoughtful as Kerr would prefer a cover-up, it becomes clear this is a widespread problem.
Half the world, it seems, has by now seen the video released by TMZ of Green punching Poole. If you haven’t seen it, watch it. Watch it again before arguing back that the assault was an inconsequential minor scuffle or a simple competitive moment gone wrong or just passing it off with a shrug and a thought bubble of … these things just happen.
It was bad. Beyond bad.
And anybody who complains about the video being released, searching with pitchforks for the scoundrel who gave it up to TMZ, indicating some sort of twisted thinking that these are private matters that should stay within a team, a family, is a part of the problem here.
This was not a time to circle the wagons and protect those on the inside, foremost among them Green.
Violence in the workplace, any workplace — in sports and out — should always be reported to and acted upon by the higher-ups in a manner that sends the right message to the perpetrator, to everyone affected, and … to well, everyone, everywhere. It’s nowhere near being OK, and it should be properly published and punished.
Again, watch the video.
Poole shoved Green as Green approached him on the floor, as is often the case when a heated competitive disagreement occurs. It’s not the best way to handle a situation like that, but it’s more a get-out-of-my-face message than an outright fight. Green’s response, a wicked fist to Poole’s head, was not a get-out-of-my-face message. It was a slug meant to hurt Poole, to inflict harm, to do damage.
A bad move with bad intentions.
Ridiculous.
These things happen all right — occasionally, but that’s no excuse and it’s not much of an explanation. But that’s part of what Warriors general manager Bob Myers said in the immediate aftermath last week:
“These things happen. Nobody likes it, we don’t condone it, but it happens. Draymond apologized to the team, Jordan was there in the room.”
Added Myers: “He will tell you he has been over that line but he always comes back. … Nobody is saying they don’t want him around … but [Wednesday] was not a good moment. … I don’t think he likes putting himself in these spots. He is in one, but I think he’ll find a way to earn the respect of his teammates and Jordan back.”
Green said he’s sorry. He explained himself — sort of — showing emotion during a news conference about the fact that he was, in that moment and in other moments, in a dark place. He called himself a “very flawed human being.”
I talked to a Jazz coach once who said he loved mentoring players with fire, but that that emotion had to have a governor on it. He said it was useful — until it raged out of bounds. Then, it could mess over a team.
Point here is that basketball is basketball. It can be rough out there. Physicality is a part of the game. But trash talk or not, collisions and confrontations, bumps and bruises notwithstanding, a punch to a teammate’s or an opponent’s bean is so far over the line Myers spoke of, it cannot be downplayed.
It is a big deal. And everyone should know about it, no one should gripe about it not being kept quiet, even it that knowledge is embarrassing to the guilty individual and to the greater organization, even if whoever made it public had reasons, beyond the altruistic, to do so.
Yeah, basketball is basketball, it’s not boxing.
Defend, rebound, make an occasional shot. But keep your fists, your punches to yourself.
We’re sorry if you’re hurting on the inside. Get help. Don’t lash out.
It’s a horrible look for a gifted player who too often has done stupid things on the court. It’s a bad look for Golden State and for the NBA.
But this flies far beyond image.
Discipline Green, then, get him the help he needs, whatever it is, long enough for him to sort himself out, to heal, to rearrange the way he thinks and competes. If he’s got a mental illness, fully address it.
And to those who believe the whole incident should have been put under wraps and kept on the inside, never to be known on the outside, that’s an approach toward violence that should be extinguished.
It’s a line of thinking that makes you wonder how often stuff like this happens and is completely cloaked.
Keep it hush-hush, handle it a couple of layers down?
No. A team’s private business is private, fine. Punching someone should not be private.
What Kerr called crazy stuff needs to be shown and known, especially in an endeavor with the high profile of NBA basketball. Shed light on it all the day long so everyone affected can learn from it. And so everyone else, everywhere, as the ripples flow out, can learn, too.
It will be interesting to see how and when Green can earn back respect — from those from whom he needs it the most — his teammates — and even more importantly, from himself.
