The NBA would be foolish to suspend Draymond Green for his groin kick
It's easy to forget, but above all else, the NBA is an entertainment product -- an elaborate reality TV show, only in this case, truly unscripted.
The league relies on big stars to draw big ratings and bring in big cash.
Draymond Green might not be a "big star" in the eyes of the league, but he is the engine that makes the league's cash cow -- the Golden State Warriors -- go, and so he should be treated as such.
And with superstar status comes superstar treatment. Fair or not, the letter of the law is a bit different for the best and brightest in the NBA, and that's why it's hard to see Green being suspended for his kick to Steven Adams' groin in Game 3 of the teams' Western Conference Finals series Sunday.
Green was assessed a flagrant foul on the eminently Vineable play, and after the game, both teams went into spin mode regarding the kick: Green and Warriors coach Steve Kerr claimed it was an accident and that the flagrant foul should be rescinded; the Thunder, if for no reason other than ruthless pragmatism, believe that Green kicked Adams' sensitive region intentionally and that he should be suspended for Game 4, which is a must-win game for Golden State.
Neither you nor I can say if Green deliberately kicked Adams between the legs in Game 3 -- any person who is stating Green's intent with definitiveness is skewing the argument to support their desire for Green to play or be suspended for Tuesday's contest. Ultimately, no self-respecting basketball fan chooses punishment over entertainment.
The NBA shouldn't either.
Because there's plausible deniability at play here, and because it's Green -- a critical player in the series -- the NBA would be stupid to suspend the Warriors' forward for Game 4.
Should Green have kicked his leg into Adams' groin? No. But accidents happen, and if Green meant to do it, he did enough to sell that the contact was incidental. Again, no one can definitively say if Green intended to inflict harm to Adams' nether-regions.
And yes, there is precedent for one-game suspensions when harmful contact is made with the aforementioned region -- the NBA takes this stuff seriously -- but the four most prominent examples, as recalled by USA Today's Sam Amick, didn't come in the playoffs. Missing one regular-season game is hardly a punishment in the NBA. Most players would welcome the day off.
If Green was just a scrub off the bench -- a Dahntay Jones type, perhaps -- then levying a one-game suspension in the playoffs would be easy. Jones received a one-game suspension Sunday for punching the groin of Raptors center Bismack Biyombo in Cleveland's Game 3 loss Saturday. The contact may have been accidental -- it's difficult to sell that in the case of a punch -- but the NBA dropped the hammer on the Cavs' reserve.
Now, the cry from Thunder fans is that the NBA needs to follow precedent and hit Green with the same punishment.
But a one-game suspension for Green is the equivalent of a year ban for Jones, who only played 42 minutes in the 2015-16 regular season.
Steve Kerr says he thinks Draymond Green's Flagrant 1 should be rescinded https://t.co/cpdtvIAENf pic.twitter.com/Pvi7izwJaA
— Kenny Ducey (@KennyDucey) May 23, 2016
The NBA can crack down and hit Green with a suspension, upholding the precedent, but in doing that, they'll be affecting the outcome of a playoff game over something they cannot prove was intentional.
That's not good business.
Some will claim "the law is the law" but Green has already been assessed a penalty. Anything beyond that would be additional punishment, made subjectively by the league for an incident that is not cut-and-dry.
When Phoenix's Amar'e Stoudemire and Boris Diaw were suspended for a game in the 2007 playoffs, the evidence was clear -- they left the Suns bench and entered the court, and the rulebook says that's a one-game suspension. The NBA was wrong to invoke the full letter of the law in that situation -- it unjustly affected a playoff series -- but the evidence was too damning to overlook, there was no plausible deniability to be found, and boy did the NBA look for some when presented with that quagmire.
But the NBA has plausible deniability here, and vice president of basketball operations Kiki Vandeweghe -- the man tasked with deciding Green's fate -- would be a fool not to take it.
