Now that we’ve established it’s open season on groins, let’s get on with the Western Conference finals.
The NBA really messed up this situation, really left itself open to charges of hypocrisy, because Draymond Green should’ve been either ejected or suspended. Instead, the Warriors’ All-Star forward was slapped on the wrist with a $25,000 fine, and the team with the best record in NBA history is at full strength for its most important game all year.
The NBA found a compromise on Monday, although it was more of a pardon, by upgrading Green’s groin kick from a Flagrant 1 to a Flagrant 2. What does this mean? Probation, really. If Green was immediately given a Flagrant 2 for his forceful punt to Steven Adams’ privates, he would’ve been ejected in the second quarter of Sunday’s loss to the Thunder. The controversy would’ve ended right there. An ejection that early in the game offsets a suspension, if not by rule, then by logic. The Warriors were blown out by 28 points, regardless.
But Green wasn’t ejected. The referees saw the replay and somehow decided Green’s rendition of The Nutcracker Suite was a Flagrant 1. Then the league reviewed it, launched an investigation and decided on an upgrade that gives Green another chance. One more flagrant and Green is suspended automatically. But he will play until then, including Tuesday in Game 4.
“During a game, players — at times — flail their legs in an attempt to draw a foul,” Kiki VanDeWeghe, the NBA’s executive vice president of basketball operations, said. “But Green’s actions in this case warranted an additional penalty.”
Additional, in this instance, doesn’t mean appropriate. Not when stacked against related cases in the past. Three seasons ago, Dwyane Wade was suspended one game for a similar-looking, yet less egregious kick to Ramon Sessions’ groin. Last season, James Harden was suspended a game for kicking LeBron James in the groin. Green’s excuse was that he kicked up his leg to sell the foul that was called on Adams.
“I didn’t intentionally kick him down there,” Green wrote Monday in a diary published on ESPN’s website, The Undefeated.
“I know how important I am to my team. Being that I know that, I’m not going to be that obvious and try to kick a man down there. . . .Why do that?”
Extending one leg underneath another man’s spread legs is a reckless move, not a basketball play, with potentially painful consequences for a defender who is simply standing his ground. There was extra and unnecessary force added to Green’s kick, occurring after the ball had left his hands.
Now the Warriors have a better chance of evening the series at 2-2, with Tuesday representing their most pivotal game since trailing the Cavaliers in last year’s NBA Finals. If they win — and if Green plays a major role as he’s apt to do — then a wrong decision swayed the Western Conference finals.
