Draymond Green acknowledges 'room for growth' as suspension from Rudy Gobert chokehold incident ends
Draymond Green acknowledged that he needs to be better, though he didn't apologize for his actions.
For the first time, the Golden State Warriors forward addressed his altercation with Rudy Gobert earlier this month — where he put the Minnesota Timberwolves center into a chokehold — and five-game suspension he received from the league.
Green said on Sunday afternoon that he wasn't going to change his playing style, but the Warriors' chances of winning "drop dramatically" if he's not on the court.
“I’m going to play basketball the way I play basketball,” Green said, via the San Jose Mercury News. “The way I play basketball has gotten me here. The way I play basketball has brought me a tremendous amount of success, individually and from a team standpoint, so I will always be myself. But I do understand and know there is room for growth and I need to be better in those moments in different situations.”
Draymond Green put Rudy Gobert into a chokehold
The incident in question took place less than two minutes into the Warriors’ game against the Minnesota Timberwolves earlier this month. Timberwolves forward Jaden McDaniels and Warriors guard Klay Thompson got tangled up near midcourt, and the altercation immediately escalated. Gobert grabbed Thompson to try and pull him off McDaniels, which is when Green jumped in.
Green flew in from behind, grabbed Gobert and put him in a chokehold. He dragged Gobert by his neck from halfcourt toward the free-throw line before finally dropping him to the court. The scene was incredibly chaotic, and led to Thompson, McDaniels and Green being ejected from the game.
“He definitely took it too far,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said days later. “I didn’t have a problem with him getting Rudy [Gobert] off of Klay [Thompson] … I thought Rudy was wrong for putting his arms on Klay, regardless of his intentions. So I had no problem with Draymond getting him off of him, but he’s gotta let go. He hung on for like six, seven seconds. It was a terrible visual for the league, for Draymond, for everybody. So Draymond was wrong. He knows that. It’s a bad look.”
The NBA suspended Green five games for “escalating an on-court altercation and for forcibly grabbing … Gobert around the neck in an unsportsmanlike and dangerous manner.” Gobert, Thompson and McDaniels were also fined $25,000 for their roles in the incident. Gobert called the fine “shameful,” and said he was planning to appeal.
“It was a long time, and if he knew how to choke it could have been way worse,” Gobert said after the incident. “He tried to. His intention was to really take me out. And I kept my hands up the whole time just to show the officials that I wasn’t trying to escalate the situation.”
Green defended his actions Sunday.
“Anytime there is a situation and a teammate needs you to come to his defense, I’m going to come to their defense,” Green said, via the San Jose Mercury News. “Especially with someone I’ve been a teammate with for 12 years. That’s more than a teammate, that’s a brother. Things can be interpreted how people interpret them, I’m not here to judge people’s interpretations or change them. They are what they are. But for me, I will always be there for my teammates.”
Green has been ejected 18 times and suspended five times in his career. The league cited his “history of unsportsmanlike acts” when assessing his latest suspension, which is the same language the NBA used last postseason after Green stomped on the chest of Sacramento Kings forward Domantas Sabonis.
That logic, however, doesn't make sense to Green.
“To continue saying, ‘Oh, what he did in the past ... ’ I paid for those,” Green said Sunday, via the San Jose Mercury News. “I got suspended for Game 5 of the Finals. So you can’t keep suspending me for those actions.
“They’ve made it clear that they are going to hold everything against me that I’ve done before. That’s OK. I need to adjust where I see fit. Where my teammates see fit, where my coaches see fit. Where our front office sees fit. The people I care about, I trust, when I hear them say something, it means something to me.”
Green has averaged 8.8 points, 5.7 assists and 5.1 rebounds this season, his 12th with the Warriors. The 33-year-old signed a four-year, $100 million deal with the team this past offseason that will keep him there through the 2026-27 campaign.
Green is eligible to return from his suspension on Tuesday night against the Kings.
