Draymond Green's Very Seriously Definitely Indefinite Suspension

A few months back, a dear-and-deep friend who has recently been making a habit of hurting others turned and did the same to me, not knowing this was a last straw, not a first one. In response, I handled it rather immediately and drastically. We’ve not spoken since, and I’m not sure when or even if we will next. It’s new ground for me, as I don’t make a habit of such drama. It’s a heartbreaker for both of us, as this is a truly good human who has simply lost their way a bit along the path, like we all tend to do from time to time. While there may be a day my heart softens, our current time apart is indefinite. Sometimes an undefined break can be what everyone needs to simply get their heads around whatever is coming next.

While Draymond Green’s suspension by the NBA is currently listed as “indefinite”, there will eventually be a defined end to his time away from the game, just like there was for the player formerly named Ron Artest, Latrell Sprewell, Gilbert Arenas, and others.

While the league has certainly handed out their fair share of quick ejections this season (we all also felt that was a quick hook, Nikola Jokic), Draymond’s path has taken a more parabolic curve this season, with multiple suspensions this year, following dust-ups inside and outside his own organization. In his career, Green has had 18 ejections and six suspensions, and with the rate he was picking up the latter this season, the league finally felt like it was time to act decisively.

• So they wheeled out the rarely-used and ever-serious indefinite suspension. In the past, the immeasurable amount was the beginning of:
• extended time away for Artest after the Malice at the Palace
• extended time away for Gilbert Arenas for bringing guns into the locker room
• extended time away for Ja Morant after trouble with weapons, and threatening others with violence
• extended time away for former Suns owner Robert Sarver for racism, sexism, and all-around douchery…

That’s Draymond’s new list of guys he’s lumped in with. That and a half-dozen more names which have been told initially “if this breakup EVER ends, we’ll tell you when”. A player with four rings and four All-Star appearances, a guy who should be a first-ballot Hall of Famer, suddenly finds himself associated with the dregs of the game instead of the legends of it. How many rings amongst the rest of that list? One for Artest/Metta World Peace. That’s it. With this last elbow to Jusuf Nurkic’s estimable noggin, Green is suddenly going to find himself not only mentioned amongst the legends of the game, but ever with this asterisk, as well. How many player have more than four championships? Less than 40. How many players have been suspended six times? That list is even shorter. How many players overlap between the two? Green is a Venn Diagram all by himself on that one…

Has the pendulum swung too far with how the league is keeping a tighter set of reins on the game via its referee pool? Maybe so, with several other ejections this season looking just as questionable and soft as the one Jokic faced in Chicago the other night. But I’ve yet to stumble across a single fan, even my few friends who are Warriors diehards, who didn’t just sigh exasperatedly and expect exactly what happened after Draymond’s latest bout with idiocy, and what Green very much had coming. Even his teammates and organization say this moment is overdue, and that Draymond needs some help coming to terms with his own demons. Here’s hoping that someone so talented and storied can get his shit together and come back to make NBA basketball a little more fun to watch. Who knows when that time will come, and who knows exactly what his league, team, or fans will demand before it does. While everyone deserves forgiveness when they’ve made it right, there are miles and miles to go before anyone besides Green feels like we are there.

Sometimes you wear everyone else out to a point that no one is sure when they’ll be ready to see you again. There is no doubt that Draymond is a personable, thoughtful, and likable guy, a guy who tends to shine in all of those aspects, especially off the court. But there is also very little doubt that the data swirling around Draymond’s many, many, many incidents on-court have finally added up to more than a pattern, and enough is simply enough. While the time away may end up feeling interminable to Green, the break and breather for all of the rest of us feels definitely needed, and definitely indefinite.