Like the ebb and flow of the tides or the migratory patterns of seabirds, there is an almost pleasant regularity to the recurrence of the Draymond Green Incident. Not that the Incidents are ever pleasant themselves, merely that the metronomic reliability of Green expressing some deep-seated frustration against some antagonist is a way to mark time passing. The NBA season is roughly one month old, which means this past weekend's Draymond Green Incident has arrived right on time.
The place: New Orleans, where the Warriors cruised against the recently de-Willie Greenified Pelicans thanks to Moses Moody exploding for 21 first-quarter points. The time: Two minutes before the end of the second quarter, after Green fouled Herb Jones to send him to the line to make it a four-point game, capping a 10-0 run and erasing most of the previously mentioned Moody magic. The incident itself: A ruddy fan in a black Pelicans polo, later identified as Sam Green, kept yelling "Angel Reese" at Draymond Green (no relation), and the two 35-year-olds went, as ESPN somewhat unhelpfully put it "nearly chest-to-chest." Green has gotten into it with fans before, most notably in 2022 when he was fined $25,000 for chirping with a fan in Dallas.
Green the fan was given the dreaded red card for poor fan conduct, though he watched the rest of the game from his courtside seat. He later told reporters that he started the Angel Reese chants after Green volleyballed himself into four offensive rebounds on one possession at the start of the game (ESPN, again unhelpfully, notes the chants were "a reference to the WNBA star and former LSU player who set several LSU and SEC rebounding records.") Green the fan says that Green the basketball player threatened to punch him. Green the basketball player clarified that his issue was not so much the chanting that bothered him, but specifically that Green the fan was not respecting his masculinity. "He just kept calling me a woman," he said after the game. "It was a good joke at first, but you can't keep calling me a woman. I got four kids, one on the way. You can't keep calling me a woman."
Seasoned Draymond Green Incident watchers could see something burbling over the past few Warriors games. No DGI happens in a vacuum, each is the result of compounded frustration; one game before Green's spinning backfist against Jusuf Nurkic in 2023, he fouled out of a contentious overtime loss in Oklahoma City, and one game before he stomped on Domantas Sabonis's chest in the 2023 playoffs, he claims to have had his leg grabbed on a similar play. In this case, Green had just played and won two spectacular games against Victor Wembanyama and the San Antonio Spurs. Green did an incredible job on Wemby, though he was on the receiving end of the biggest highlight of the night when Wemby dunked on him then screamed in his face.
After the game, Green responded by using the interaction as an example of how he is unfairly victimized by the league. "It’s good to see him show emotion," he said. "I like when guys show emotion. I just wish that if I can yell in someone’s face and then a teammate can come grab me and nothing happens—because if I yell in someone’s face and grab someone, I get suspended indefinitely." It is sort of bracing that after a decade-plus of DGIs, Green lacks the basic self-awareness to think of himself as anything other than a victim. If I were his coworker, victim, or coworker/victim, I would find this nauseating. But as a mere observer of the human spirit there is something in Green's irrationality that is at least coherent with the competitive form of the NBA. You almost have to have some level of irrational self-belief to succeed in sports, and Green helpfully shows us the upper limits of such delusion.
