Draymond Green received an indefinite suspension just a day after he was ejected for slapping Jusuf Nurkic. While the entire basketball community is ripping apart Green, Shaquille O’Neal decided to back the Golden State Warriors leader. Making an appearance on The Rich Eisen Show, the TNT analyst defended the four-time champ, claiming that the latter didn’t need any help.
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Draymond Green just came back on the court from a five-game suspension before being hit with yet another suspension. This time, the league didn’t want to put a timeline on Green’s return. Instead, the NBA slapped him with an indefinite suspension, wherein, the defensive specialist could receive help and return as a changed player.
Shaquille O’Neal disagrees with the decision. According to Shaq, Green doesn’t require any help and has not been behaving differently than he did throughout the course of his career.
“There is nothing wrong with Draymond. Y’all treating him like he’s crazy. He’s not crazy. He’s been playing like this the whole time.
Shaq even claimed that this is the way he won 4 championships with the Warriors before backing his claims.
“How many techs does he average a year? How many times you see him going to the referee? This is the way he has to play to become Draymond Green.”
The Los Angeles Lakers legend did admit that Dray made a mistake. However, the mistake that the Big Aristotle was talking about had nothing to do with Green’s anger issues. But, O’Neal pointed out that the forward hoisting his arm was an error that he could’ve avoided. Instead, Shaq called out Jusuf Nurkic for trying to sell the foul.
“Only mistake he made is he had his arms out like that… What I really didn’t like it is the big guy (Nurkic) all on the ground. Get your big a** up. Get up, stop it, you sold the call it’s a foul, get up.”
Comparing the way Green plays to Dennis Rodman, Shaq implied that the latter had similar antics and was yet a Hall-Of-Famer.
“That’s the way Rodman has been his whole career. For everybody say ‘he needs help, he needs help’, I’m not going to say that. This is the way he’s been. That’s the way Rodman has been his whole career to make him a Hall of Famer.”
Draymond Green has been bashed by the media
For smacking Jusuf Nurkic in the face, Draymond Green was ejected after receiving a flagrant two-foul. Things went from bad to worse when the NBA announced that the former Michigan State Spartan was being suspended indefinitely, only the second person to ever receive such a punishment.
The indefinite suspension refers to when an NBA player has been suspended for an unknown amount of games. Only after the player completes a few ‘tasks’ will he be allowed to make his return and set foot on the hardwood.
The media’s reactions seem as though they will not be forgetting about Green’s actions anytime soon. On any given opportunity, the media has been attacking the 6ft 6” forward. Esteemed names from the media community such as Shams Charania and Justine Termine berated the 33-year-old.
“What’s bad for the sport is throwing out the best player in the world, when he is playing on the road for fans who are paying thousands of dollars. Nobody is paying for Draymond Green,” Termine said.
“It’s indefinite because he has to show the league that he’s learned from this, this is the fourth major incident,” Charania said.
Considering that he punched Jordan Poole last year, choked Rudy Gobert a couple of weeks back, and hit Nurkic, Green might need some sort of help… whether Shaq agrees or not.
