If anything, Draymond Green is unwavering and unapologetic when it comes to the style of play that has elevated him to four-time NBA champion. He plays hard. He plays tough. Sometimes he even thugs out guys with lesser heart on the court. He analyzes the potential problems and he’s the muscle called in to handle those problems and allow everyone else to freely execute their jobs.
Green’s style of play has been garnering him technical fouls for years, dating back to the “Stimulus package” that the NBA gave LeBron James in the 2017 NBA Finals, suspending Green with the team up 3-1, which eventually led to the greatest comeback in NBA Finals history.
Not sure why everyone gets so up in arms when Green’s hand smacks a defender in the face or when he yokes someone up going after his teammate. It’s what brought the man four rings. The passion. The purpose. He knows what his job is, and he does it.
With Steph Curry out with a janky hamstring and not expected to be available again until at the earliest Game 5 of the Western Conference semifinals, Draymond was mixing it up with some extra aggression, while picking up his fifth technical foul of the 2025 NBA playoffs during the Warriors’ 117-93 Game 2 loss to the Timberwolves on Thursday.
Green did one of his infamous arm flails that connected with Timberwolves big Naz Reid who hit the ground like a boxer with a cotton chin. The referees reviewed the play and slapped Green with a dead-ball technical foul.
Green was predictably irate and began cursing out the refs, before Steph Curry, Steve Kerr and others tried to calm down the enraged Green. Kerr sat Green down for six minutes, until he regained his composure.
Draymond Green Says NBA Trying To Portray Him As Angry Black Man
After the game, Green criticized what he perceives as an “agenda” to portray him as “an angry Black man.”
“I’m not an angry Black man,” Green said in the locker room, via The Athletic’s Anthony Slater. “I’m a very successful, educated Black man with a great family. And I’m great at basketball, I’m great at what I do. The agenda to try to keep making me look like an angry Black man is crazy. I’m sick of it. It’s ridiculous.”
Kerr didn’t criticize Draymond after the game because everybody already knows that these kinds of incidents occur and the way Green plays. It’s part of his basketball DNA. In fact, he’s one of the only guys keeping this soft, euro-centric league even resembling anything we used to see in the NBA.
Hustle Hard used to be a real thing.
“It’s part of Draymond,” Kerr said when asked if he has any hard feelings towards Green. “The same thing that makes him such a competitor and a winner puts him over the top sometimes. We know that, and it’s our job to try and help him stay poised, stay composed. But the competition is so meaningful to him that occasionally he goes over the line.”
With all of the drama, Green would still have to do a lot in these last few games of the series to accumulate the two more technical fouls, or two flagrant points, that will garner him an automatic one–game suspension. Green’s most recent suspension came for making contact with the face of Phoenix Suns player Jusuf Nurkic in the face during the 2023-24 season. In total, the Warriors’ defensive stalwart and emotional leader has been suspended six times in his illustrious career.
Does Draymond Green Purposely Try To Get Ejected When Curry Isn’t Playing?
It goes without being said that with Curry out, the Warriors need Draymond on the floor, facilitating and defending more than ever.
His actions last night were curious though, considering he knows the team is relying on him more heavily. It almost seemed as if he wanted to get tossed out the game, because he knows that without Curry they don’t have a chance.
This isn’t the first time that narrative has been thrown out there.
Angry Black man though? Most NBA players are Black, so in this instance it doesn’t really fit in my opinion. Draymond has always played this way. That’s why the league officiates him so much differently than any other player.
After 12 seasons in the NBA, we all know he isn’t going to change and why should he? He’s dedicated to the game and his style of play. It’s what got him here and what will probably get him into the NBA Hall of Fame one day.
