One of Draymond Green’s ex-Warriors teammates thinks there’s a trend in his altercations

Former Warriors player Nick Young seems to believe there’s a trend in the type of person that his former teammate, Draymond Green, likes to go after in his on-court altercations.

Young, who played for the Golden State during the 2017-18 championship season, appeared on TV show “Undisputed” Wednesday morning to discuss Green’s latest incident. The 33-year-old forward was tossed with a flagrant-2 foul from Tuesday’s 119-116 loss to the Suns after delivering a spinning smack to the head to Phoenix center Jusuf Nurkic. Green explained after the game that he was just trying to “sell a foul” and claimed his hit was an “accident.”

Prompted with a question on Wednesday about what kind of person Green is to play against, Young shared his observations about who he thinks the Warriors forward is more likely to get into it with.

“He’s more of a cheap shot guy, you know,” Young said, chuckling. “He tends to do that to a lot of Europeans. He’s messing with nothing but foreigners.”

It’s likely that Young fell into some recency bias. After all, Green’s last three major on-court altercations have featured a European guy on the wrong end of things. Prior to swinging on the Suns’ Bosnian big man, he put French Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert in a headlock back in November, and infamously stomped on the chest of Lithuanian Kings center Domantas Sabonis. 

Green was suspended for what he did to Sabonis and Gobert, and is very likely to receive a suspension for what he did on Tuesday. If that punishment comes to fruition, it will be the sixth time he’s been suspended in his career, and the fourth suspension he’s received this calendar year — he was suspended for a game in March after receiving his 16th technical foul last season.

Young might have been off base with what’s going on in Green’s head when he gets into it with an opponent, but it’s a difficult question to solve. Not even his latest victim could come up with an answer beyond shrugging his shoulders.

“What’s going with him? I don’t know,” Nurkic told reporters after the game. “Personally, I feel like that brother needed help. I’m glad he didn’t try to choke me. At the same time, ain’t nothing to do with basketball, man. I’m just out there trying to play basketball… Hope whatever he got in his life gets better.”

Tuesday was the Warriors’ 13th loss of the season, keeping the team at 11th place in the crowded Western Conference. For the sake of their season, the Dubs might want to figure out what Green’s deal is sooner rather than later.