Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but Draymond Green got a technical last night. This one came after he elbowed Naz Reid in the face, putting him just two shy of a suspension that the Golden State Warriors can ill afford, especially with Steph Curry’s timetable to return from a strained hamstring uncertain.
Advertisement
Draymond has always straddled the line of “playing hard” and “playing dirty,” and you don’t need to see a montage of clips of his various on-court altercations to understand why. After the game, though, Draymond took exception with what he perceived as an agenda to paint him as an “angry black man,” and he pushed against it by pointing out that he’s successful, he has a great family, and he’s great at what he does.
Shannon Sharpe and Chad Johnson weighed in on last night’s episode of Nightcap, and what they said had a lot of truth to it.
“We can only base it off his actions on the court, that’s pretty much it,” Johnson said. “I love Draymond, good friend of mine. He’s not an angry black man. He can be passionate … he kinda hurts some people sometimes, elbows, knees and kicks or whatnot, but he’s an enforcer. There’s a difference in being angry and passionate about something.”
Sharpe agreed, saying, “I don’t look at him as [an angry black man]. Sometimes do I think his play goes over the line? Yes. But I don’t think he’s angry.”
This is a difficult subject to tackle since there’s a racial component to it, so you want to treat it with the proper sensitivity. On the other hand, it’s kind of funny to hear Johnson describe Draymond the same way an overprotective mother tries to rationalize why her precious baby boy keeps hurting people on the playground.
There’s a line between passionate and angry
Everything Green does on the court is for a reason. He’s an unconventional star in the sense that he doesn’t score a lot of points and he doesn’t shoot it particularly well, but he’s been an integral part of the Warriors dynasty because of everything else that he brings to the table. Part of that is the “enforcer” factor, as Johnson put it.
Green takes all the heat so Steph Curry doesn’t have to. He makes sure the Warriors don’t get punked by anybody. Sometimes he goes too far, but part of that is because he knows he can get away with so much. There’s a running joke in the league that the most dangerous player in the game is Draymond after he gets his first technical, because referees are so reluctant to throw him out with a second one that he can get away with anything.
There are reports that a fan got ejected for yelling racial slurs at Draymond during the game, which might have contributed to his locker room tirade. Even when delivering that monologue, though, when he was obviously upset, Draymond was like he always is: articulate, and yes, passionate.
Sharpe hit the nail on the head when he said, “We’re angry, they’re passionate,” referring to the different way the same actions are portrayed between black athletes and white athletes.
It’s an unfortunate truth that these racial stereotypes still persist across most sports. Black quarterbacks are still described in terms of their athleticism, and rarely for their intelligence and processing ability, for example. At the same time, we still have idiots in the stands going too far with how they interact with athletes, especially black ones.
Draymond Green is going to go down as one of the most divisive players of his era, a guy you’d love to have on your team but hate to be against. Is he passionate? Yes. Dirty? Maybe. Angry? That’s a bridge too far.
Draymond deserves criticism for some of the things he does on the court, there’s no question about it, even if he has a clear reason for doing them. You can even view him as a villain if you want. Just leave the race part out of it, because in 2025, we should be better than that.
