Warriors’ Draymond Green Slams NBA’s Hypocrisy on Punishment

When it comes to paying fines and dealing with league discipline for stepping too far outside the rules, few are better versed in today’s NBA–maybe in the history of the NBA–than Golden State Warriors star big man Draymond Green. According to the tally at Spotrac, Green has been fined 244 times for more than $1 million, and he has been suspended six times at a cost of $3.2 million.

The league is consistent and even aggressive at times when it comes to fining players who run afoul of the rules. But after beating the Kings on Tuesday–a team that has gone 8-29 since mid-January and is clearly seeking a good draft pick–Green was asked about what the league could do to limit tanking by teams like Sacramento.

Green was blunt: Treat teams the same way players are treated. Take their money.

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Draymond Green Rants on Tanking After Warriors Win

Green has said that the Warriors, even when Stephen Curry‘s injury looked bad enough to perhaps keep him out for the year, would not tank. But there are at least nine teams in the NBA that are clearly not much interested in winning this season. Green said they should be fined the way players are.

“I get fined when I do wrong. Just fine the hell out of people,” Green said after the win. “You know, we love taking money from players. Keep fining those teams. I’ve seen two fines. And we all know everybody’s tanking. But you’ve seen two fines. You know? If it was players, they’d snatch that money in a heartbeat. Why isn’t it the same? Everybody loves money.

“So, you know, the punishment for players is always, take your money. Well, now it comes time to punish teams and all the sudden, nobody knows what to do. But why not? We know exactly what to do when somebody gets a technical foul. Suspended for a game. They know exactly what to do. All the sudden, we got team issues, nobody knows what to do. What happened to the whole, take the money stuff?”

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Warriors Did Not Resort to Tanking With Stephen Curry Out

Part of the issue there is that the teams in question are not explicitly breaking any rules–the NBA has tried to ease tanking by having the play-in tournament to give more teams a chance at the playoffs, and by tinkering with the lottery to lessen the incentive to tank. Neither has worked.

“The play-in was made for teams to not tank,” Green said. “I think that’s the part that everyone forgets. Like, the play-in came about to make teams like, maybe 12 through 13, keep going. They didn’t keep going. They slowed down. Hit the brakes. I saw a team tonight foul Seth Curry with three minutes to go in the game for no reason. In the penalty. It ain’t working.”

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Draymond Green: ‘We Wanna Snatch Money as Fast as We Can’

After the Warriors’ win, Green said that 12 teams–it is actually nine–are tanking, but there have only been two fines levied, against the Indiana Pacers and the Utah Jazz. Neither of those teams stopped tanking after those fines. There is hypocrisy in the fact that the math does not add up.

“When it comes to player discipline, we wanna snatch the money as fast as we can,” Green said. “Comes to team discipline and we see 12 teams tanking, we’ve seen two fines. If the math serves me correctly, that’s 10 that ain’t been fined.”

 

 

Sean Deveney is a veteran sports reporter covering the NBA, NFL and MLB for Heavy.com. He has written for Heavy since 2019 and has more than two decades of experience covering the NBA, including 17 years as the lead NBA reporter for the Sporting News. Deveney is the author of 7 nonfiction books, including “Fun City,” “Before Wrigley became Wrigley,” and “Facing Michael Jordan.” More about Sean Deveney