Former NBA All-Star Rasheed Wallace was a recent guest on “Gil’s Arena,” where he told tales of his time in the league and opined on the current state of the game. Wallace told hosts Gilbert Arenas and Josiah Johnson that his 2004 Detroit Pistons and the culture around the team is to blame for Draymond Green‘s bully behavior because he was around the team at the time.
“That’s our fault. And when I say ‘our,’ that’s my fault, that’s Ben Wallace’s fault, that’s Chauncey [Billups’] fault, that’s Rip Hamilton’s fault, that’s Tayshaun [Prince’s] fault…,” Wallace said. “Everybody in that locker room because he grew up in our locker room. One of his best friends was the son of the GM, so he was around us… That’s why he doing the bully s–t he doing now, in my opinion.”
Draymond Spent A Lot Of Time Around 2004 Pistons
The general manager of the 2003-04 Pistons was Joe Dumars. His son Jordan would come to the arena and bring Draymond along.
That was a veteran squad with players who policed each other. No doubt Draymond saw a ton of incidents most would deem not suitable for youngsters. But it is what is. When you bring kids around adult environments, they’re going to witness things and potentially internalize what they see.
That team won a championship so Draymond also saw that the behavior at worst didn’t stop a team from winning at the highest level, and it may have been a factor in winning.
Of course we have no idea what a young teenage-aged Draymond thought about it at the time. All we can do is assume and speculate, which is what Wallace is doing.
But we have seen other areas that give us further insight into why Draymond behaves the way he does.
Draymond is an excellent player, a Hall of Famer and maybe the best defender of this generation. He has a brilliant basketball mind and he plays with an edge. He’s not the most athletic guy in the league, and what he lacks in physical gifts he makes up with intellect and his attitude. He plays up to and often over the line because his emotions drive him.
He argues with officials constantly, and if you pay attention to Golden State Warriors games, he is given a lot of latitude by the officials. Some would argue more latitude than other players are given for behaving similarly. That latitude reinforces the behavior he exhibits. If Draymond knows he can say a little extra and go a bit further, he will continue to do so.
Problematic High Performer
The Warriors are also complicit in Draymond’s behavior. They’ve understood who Draymond is from the moment they drafted him. That stellar play has helped the franchise enjoy its greatest success, but it’s also caused issues.
Draymond famously blew up at then teammate Kevin Durant during a game in 2018 and it was one of the factors that caused KD to leave the team in free agency.
In 2016 Draymond had to be restrained by teammates and arena police from going after head coach Steve Kerr in the locker room during halftime of a game.
Of course there was the punch seen around the world last season, when he knocked out then teammate Jordan Poole in practice. The Warriors traded Poole and signed Draymond to an extension this summer.
Draymond is a problematic high performer, to borrow from management parlance. But he is rewarded at every turn for being just that.
Earlier this season he was suspended five games for performing a rear naked chokehold on the Minnesota Timberwolves’ Rudy Gobert and upon his return felt no remorse and said he wasn’t going to change a thing.
“The consensus amongst all of us is that I’m going to be me no matter what. That’s not going to change,” Green said following his suspension.
Hanging around the Pistons as an impressionable kid might have had an impact on why Draymond is the way he is as Wallace suggests. But there are plenty of other factors at play as well that reinforce it.
