Draymond Green ... again
Not a full month removed from his costly altercation with Minnesota's Rudy Gobert, Golden State's polarizing power forward takes over the NBA news cycle anew by striking Phoenix's Jusuf Nurkić
This will not read like your usual Tuesday Newsletter Extravaganza.
It couldn’t be after such an atypical Newsletter Tuesday.
The combination of a bonus podcast opportunity with Orlando Magic coach Jamahl Mosley, followed by an early evening tipoff for the Los Angeles Lakers’ first visit of the season to Dallas, pulled me away from my publishing post all day. Then minutes after I walked backed into my home office Tuesday night to resume writing, Golden State’s Draymond Green was ejected for a wild swing as he was spinning that tagged Jusuf Nurkić in the face and sent the Phoenix big man to the floor.
I saw some amazing stuff in that Lakers/Mavericks game: Luka Dončić rumbled for 33 points and 17 assists and threw what might rank as his best pass ever (see below) … while Anthony Davis and LeBron James combined for a weighty 70 points in their start to Life After The In-Season Tournament … only for the shorthanded Mavericks to eke out a 127-125 triumph on the second night of a back-to-back because Dončić got huge support from Tim Hardaway Jr. (32 points to boost his Sixth Man of the Year campaign) and former No. 5 overall pick Dante Exum (who sank seven 3-pointers after making just eight in his first 19 games as a Maverick).
The story of the evening, though, wound up being Green losing control yet again.
Overshadowing the dramatics in the Dallas and the stunning ejection of Denver’s Nikola Jokić on Serbian Heritage Night in Chicago and an apparent groin injury in Clipperland that felled Paul George after both PG-13 and Kawhi Leonard appeared in each of the Clippers’ first 23 games together, Green’s latest tangle has the basketball public wondering in unison yet again about how stern the league office will be.
Green, of course, was recently hit with a five-game suspension for applying a chokehold to Minnesota’s Rudy Gobert. Tuesday’s visit to Phoenix was just his sixth game back from that punishment, which the NBA told us was "based in part on Green’s history of unsportsmanlike acts."
Leaning on the league’s own verbiage would naturally lead you to conclude that the next suspension will be longer for Green, who has played in only 15 of the Warriors’ 23 games this season and has been ejected from three of them.
Watch Green’s swing here (if you somehow haven’t seen it already) and you’ll surely understand why what happened in the desert quickly usurped anything else planned in this cyberspace:
"We need him," Warriors coach Steve Kerr said, struggling to mask his post-game exasperation. "We need Draymond. He knows that. We’ve talked to him. He’s gotta find a way to keep his poise and be out there for his teammates."
Green then told reporters afterward: "[Nurkić] was pulling my hip and I was swinging away to sell the call and made contact with him. As you know, I'm not one to apologize for things I meant to do, but I do apologize to Jusuf. I didn't intend to hit him."
Suspension Watch 2.0 for the 10-13 Warriors starts now.
(Editor’s note: It was still Tuesday in multiple NBA time zones when this story published.)
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For your listening pleasure
The Orlando Magic awoke Tuesday with the East’s second-best record (16-7) and the NBA’s third-ranked defense, leading to the aforementioned special edition of our #thisleague UNCUT podcast with Magic coach Jamahl Mosley joining Turner Sports’ Chris Haynes and me.
Orlando’s surprising start, its defensive approach, Mosley’s challenge of managing success with a young team and the blossoming frontcourt partnership featuring Paolo Banchero and Franz Wagner … we cover all that and more in our Mosley chat.
Listen here:
Numbers Game
🏀 37
In the offseason, Monty Williams and Gregg Popovich made headlines for becoming the two highest-paid coaches in the league, with Williams landing a six-year deal worth nearly $80 million from the Pistons and Popovich reportedly getting even more to carry on with the Spurs. Their teams will enter Wednesday’s play with a combined 37-game losing streak — that’s 20 losses in a row for Detroit (one shy of the Pistons’ longest-ever drought) and a franchise-record 17 in a row for San Antonio.
🏀 7
We recently ran an item in this section about how there were only five dates on the calendar, from the start of the NBA regular season on Oct. 24 through the last date of the 2023-24 campaign on April 14, with zero NBA games. That number actually increased to seven days without a single NBA game on the schedule thanks to the past two Sundays that sandwiched the final week of the In-Season Tournament.
🏀 5
The other five dates on the NBA's regular-season calendar with no games (not counting the All-Star break): Nov. 7 (Election Day), Nov. 23 (Thanksgiving), Dec. 24 (Christmas Eve), April 8 (same night as the NCAA men's Division I championship game at the Final Four) and April 13 (on the night before all 30 teams play on the final day of the regular season).
🏀 19.3
The Lakers won all seven games they played in the In-Season Tournament by an average margin of 19.3 points.
🏀 55-74
The composite record of the six teams that the Lakers played in the tournament, including Phoenix twice, was 55-74 entering Tuesday’s play.
🏀 10.3
The Knicks announced Monday that Mitchell Robinson, ranked 11th in the league in rebounds at 10.3 boards per game — and No. 1 in offensive rebounding at 5.3 per game — will be out at least eight to 10 weeks after undergoing surgery this week on his left ankle.
🏀 4
The Dallas Mavericks will soon become the second team in the NBA (and the second in the Southwest Division) to be owned by a casino operator (Las Vegas Sands Corp.). Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta owns casinos in Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada and New Jersey.
🏀 5
Dallas' Luka Dončić recently became the fifth player to record a triple-double in a single half, joining Nikola Jokić (twice), Russell Westbrook (twice), Domantas Sabonis and Dončić's coach Jason Kidd.
🏀 34.5
The Suns' Kevin Durant and the Kings' De'Aaron Fox tied for the highest scoring average in the In-Season Tournament (minimum three games played) at 34.5 points per game.
🏀 16.3
Denver's Nikola Jokić was the top rebounder at 16.3 boards per game.
🏀 13.3
Indiana's Tyrese Haliburton led the IST in assists per game at 13.3. (The last three stats were furnished by my fellow Substacker
.)🏀 4
We’re closing in on the one-year anniversary of our #thisleague UNCUT podcast and Orlando’s Jamahl Mosley was the fourth head coach to appear on the show, joining Sacramento’s Mike Brown and the Los Angeles duo of Darvin Ham (Lakers) and Tyronn Lue (Clippers),
🏀 97.1
I’m on the radio Saturdays from noon to 1 PM CT on 97.1 (FM) The Freak in Dallas with an hour of live NBA talk presented by Panini Trading Cards and Collectibles. Join us online by clicking the link embedded in this sentence or via the iHeart radio app to listen to The Saturday Stein Line on this or any Saturday ... or catch the podcasted version of the show once it drops via Apple Podcasts, Spotify or #whereveryougetyourpodcasts:
Should be 10 game suspension.
Indefinitely>20 games.... I hope.