Draymond Green … we'll wait a moment while you readjust your underwear … is the last living pre-modern basketball player, a time-traveler from the era when "everyone is just collateral damage to the greater goal" was the predominant philosophy who has arrived in our moment to do the absolute most. Which is why his little tribute to the 1970s, and to a handful of defunct WWE finishing moves, hit the Christmas basketball crowd so intensely. In executing and selling his inspired and illegal double-takedown of two Los Angeles Lakers, Green managed to commit four callable fouls on the same play. It was remarkable, but also just part of a full evening's work on a full day of quality basketball. And he still managed to fit in his normal output—no discernible offense, 10 rebounds, and a technical foul for complaining to referees—in that purely Greenian way of his.
The “four callable fouls” thing is particularly instructive where Green’s eye to the past is concerned. You can almost see Dalton Knecht and Rui Hachimura sensing that something is about to go very amiss for both of them. They both can see that Green is between them, but their main attention is on the rebound they seek. You can definitely see Scott Foster, the referee you love to hate mostly because he's probably the only referee whose name you know, already putting his whistle in his mouth; he's seen this general dynamic since Green became a pro and has the requisite Pavlovian response. None of this really snuck up on anyone, and yet it arrived as a surprise all the same.
Green manages his typical level of creativity through mayhem in what seems like a lost cause by hooking Knecht's left arm at the elbow and Hachimura's right in identical fashion simultaneously and then clutching both arms firmly toward his chest with his own arms as he hip-drops to the floor. Green is taking a fall, and he's taking them with him—a hat-tip move if you're of the age to remember Charlie O'Connell and Roller Derby from 60 years back. O’Connell used to do that all the time in service to the cause; because it was Roller Derby, the officials there were always otherwise engaged and therefore nothing was called. Always give the people what they want, after all.
Now, of course, this is part of the Green kabuki that separates Warrior fans from the larger population. For the former, it is Green seeking that minute advantage for the good of the lads; for the latter, it's why they hate him. And for his fellow players, including Knecht and Hachimura, it's just part of the deal when the Warriors are on the schedule. Green is still innovating in the space, as his double-takedown proves, but he has been doing variations on this nefarious theme for 13 years now; this sort of thing has long been a part of his considerable defensive repertoire. Yes, Green is smart and sees the floor with rare precision, and yes he will foul you in ways that you will remember for years or forget at your peril.
This, though, is exceptional even for him in the way that this is exceptional. You're in a bad spot, outnumbered and out-positioned; the percentage play is to take out Hachimura, being the Laker with inside position, but that doesn't help with Knecht. And so Green dared to dream bigger and more theatrically. Maybe he gets away with it entirely if he doesn't also yell and kick up his legs and if the official in question hadn't seen a million fouls of all varieties before this, many of them authored by Green himself. But you don't question a craftsman when he is at his table. Green crushes this 7-10 split, period.
One would like to think that this play is part of what LeBron James was referring to when he said that Christmas was the NBA’s day, or what Kevin Durant was thinking when he lectured a critic about the state of the game on Twitter, as is his own traditional post-holiday celebration. Everyone has to dance to the band they hire, and woe betide those who forget that basic lifehack. The next time someone tries to double up on a tactical foul, it will be known as a Draymond Takedown. History, after all, is just an endless loop of people doing people. Green, time traveler that he is, will be the only one who knows some guy on roller skates did it during the Johnson administration.
