The worst thing about the Golden State Warriors advancing in the National Basketball Association playoffs is that we must be subjected to the dirty plays and race-baiting of Draymond Green.
Green picked up his fifth technical foul of the playoffs after intentionally striking Minnesota’s Naz Reid in the face. In just nine playoff games, Green has picked up five technicals and two flagrant fouls for acts including striking Houston’s Fred Van Vleet in the face and clubbing Houston’s Jalen Green in the back of the head.
Green now wants you to know that noticing that he is a dirty player with anger problems is racist, saying after the game, “I’m not an angry black man. I’m a very successful, educated black man with a great family. And I’m great at basketball. Great at what I do. The agenda to try to keep making me look like an angry black man is crazy. I’m sick of it. It’s ridiculous.” It’s a similar invocation of the “angry black man” racist trope that former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) tried to use to excuse him for screaming at members of Congress.
Just as with Bowman, Green is trying to blame racism for his reputation. This is a man who has repeatedly assaulted other players during games, whether striking them in the head, kicking them in sensitive areas, or stomping on their chests. Green is the dirtiest player in modern NBA history and has a record of screaming at referees whenever something doesn’t go his way. He even, infamously, sucker-punched one of his teammates at a practice, later releasing a short documentary painting himself as a victim sent into “exile” as punishment.
Just as he has a history of being a dirty player, Green has a history of race-baiting. He claimed that “figure of speeches aren’t OK in 2017” after literally taking the phrase “inmates running the prison” (remember, he brags about being “educated”). He said that “you shouldn’t say owner” when referring to the owners of NBA teams, because “the word ‘owner’ … dates back to slavery,” which it does not. And Green, of course, jumped into the debate about Florida’s history standards with false claims that Florida Republicans were trying to erase black history.
On the court and off, Draymond Green is one of the most insufferable basketball players we have been subjected to in recent history. He is arrogant, ignorant, purposefully divisive, and is prone to assaulting opposing players or his own teammates whenever he steps on a basketball court. The NBA and our political discourse would be better off when Green retires, if it weren’t for the fact that NBA media will offer him a microphone to spew his uneducated, divisive opinions for years to come.