I think the union is doing just that, no? I have not heard one person defend Draymond for his swing on Nurkic. The punch to Poole was a teammate baiting him and Gobert was a reaction of Gobert having his arms wrapped around a teammates neck....obv not the reaction that you'd want him to see but certainly not unprovoked to a degree. What occurred with Nurkic is 100% indefensible and everyone seems to be on the same page with the indefinite suspension.
The bolded is the most charitable possible interpretation of events (to Draymond). We can't hear what was said, but Poole wasn't even looking at Draymond when the latter walked right up in his face and bumped him, essentially forcing Poole to either shove him away (which he did) or get literally walked right over, followed by Draymond escalating to the nth degree with the punch. Gobert had his arms around Klay, but he wasn't pulling and one of his arms was under Klay's arm (meaning even if the other arm was on Klay's neck, choking wasn't a remote possibility). What Gobert did was the sort of obvious peacemaking that you see in literally every NBA scuffle ever, then Draymond went with the dragging rear naked choke, absolutely beyond the pale. Neither of those events were defensible, even if we want to squint real hard and look at it from Draymond's POV. This suspension is a long time coming.
Shelburne has always been like that as far as I can recall, she is basically Jeannie Buss' press agent and a total access merchant. One of the frustrating things about Zach Lowe being on ESPN still is he feels like he is obligated to spend time talking about the Lakers/Warriors/Clippers with a bunch of know-nothing ESPN people.
I agree it's charitable but not unprovoked to some degree....which makes these two instances far far different than an unprovoked cheap shot to Nurkic which is why nobody is coming to his defense here.
On Poole, I didn't say it was unprecedented, just that it was inexcusable (kudos to Green for not literally shooting Poole, I guess). I think the biggest reason the Nurkic cheap shot is seen as indefensible is because it happened after the other two events. We could conjure up the same flimsy logic to defend it (he thought he was being fouled, he flopped like so many players do, and he accidentally caught Nurkic's face with his flailing. We've seen other guys flop and injure people. For better or worse he says he didn't mean to hit him, unlike the other incidents), but it falls flat because he has such a rich and recent history of behaving inappropriately on the court.
And it’s worth pointing out he’s at 4 incidents over 26 total games played going back to the stomp. Not even Rodman had a run like this.
I dunno man. I'm not defending Draymond only saying there there is a drastic difference between the 3 incidents and nobody was expecting anything less than a long suspension on this one unlike the others.
To me there’s no way that was unintentional on Nurkic. DG’s arms aren’t being held.. so if he’s going to flop he should fall forward.. instead he turns and swings his arms back and up. He then just stands there.. no attempt at an apology, no shock that he hit him etc. it’s the exact sand thing Dwight Howard used to do when he’d bring his arms down on other players and just act like that was completely normal. It’s the exact opposite of how someone acts when the do something unintentionally.
Yeah there's no way to rationalize or handwave away this one, but there's no real excuse for the other two either.
Wait---she had credibility with you before? Don't get me wrong---she's useful on ESPN because she's well-connected and gets access and stories, in particular on the Lakers. But she's no more of an independent analyst than Schefter or Shams or Woj.
I have no idea why the severity of these events is being compared. They're all horrific. If the timing of the Gobert and Nurkic incidents were reversed, Draymond would have found himself in the same situation he's in right now. It's not that the Nurkic incident is so much more terrible than the Gobert -- it's that Draymond didn't heed the warning. He had this coming. Some might say too little, too late, but he clearly had this coming after Gobert.
I'd argue even less so, for quite some time now. She's basically a Lakers spokesperson, which also means that she's a Rich Paul spokesperson.
Fair! It's odd to me they have brought her in on the Draymond/Warriors....presumably just for Rich Paul purposes
It's really something. This game from a couple weeks ago against Sac will be completely lost to the world, but Draymond flops hard looking for a call, doesn't get it, gets a tech for arguing a minute later, then starts hacking at Malik Monk hard, then stares at the official who calls the obvious foul, just daring the refs to toss him (they do not):
@Sam Ray Not likes this.
I don't have any problem with the officiating there. They didn't call the obvious flop (1) initially, where he's grabbing his face despite his face being untouched - maybe you can say they should've called a flopping tech, but those aren't a thing right now. He gestures for a call to the point of showing up the refs, and gets a tech for it (2). Then he commits a foul that's a basketball play and not more than that (3), and is called for the foul, but aside from a little stare doesn't exactly go apeshit, as he sometimes does.
My takeaway: it was dumb, immature, & selfish basketball from Draymond that Kerr high-fived. The HC has lost control of the situation.
You're making a logical mistake. There's not a drastic difference between the 3 incidents. It's their cumulative impact. If they'd happened in any order the final one would have recv'd the biggest reaction. As for trash talk (from the day before, if I recall correctly) being "baiting" a player. If trash talk is bait to get punched out, every single NBA game would be a 15 round Ali-Frazier battle. That's just a weird take.
I understand the cumulative effect but I see a vast difference between Nurkic and the other two. First off, Poole wasn't in a game it was in a practice where these things happen not that infrequently...far different than Nurkic. I stand by my take that seeing your teammate with arms wrapped around his neck should result in something by someone....but he took it too far. Again, far different imo than a cheap shot to Nurkic. What is going unnoticed is not a single player coming to Nurkic's defense or even reacting at all. Very interesting to say the least when your teammate is down on the ground by a cheap shot.
I just watched this video and my god Draymond should be ashamed. That flop and laying on the ground for seconds acting like he got elbowed in the face
I guess I don't follow your point on either case. But just to focus on this one: is someone arguing that no one on the Warriors should have done anything? Of course not. And of course it's not a problem to have someone doing something -- pretty sure both teams were out there doing "something."
I agree and I've said that upthread that he took it too far. There was an incident with a teammate leading up to him jumping Gobert where his initial thought was of protecting a teammate. None of that lead up occurred in the Nurkic incident where Green simply lost his mind and clocked Nurkic out of the complete blue. I don't see those as similar. Agree to disagee is fine.
Going into that interview I had very little respect for Shelburne. She's basically Jeannie Buss's puppet (she was the one that acted like LaMarcus Aldridge committed crimes against humanity because he didn't sign with the Lakers after meeting with Kobe and the FO) and knows extremely little about basketball.
A few people have brought up the Gobert thing and protecting a teammate. That video seemed pretty clear that Gobert was trying to move Klay out of the tussle, not trying to hurt him. That's a pretty common occurrence in NBA dust-ups and you never see someone get put into a chokehold for 10 seconds.
Heat of the moment though you turn around and you don't really have time to evaluate the situation. It's instinctual behavior that we've seen countless times so that part I don't ding him at all.....again the extended chokehold we have not seen countless times and he deserved the suspension.
I wholeheartedly disagree with the final sentence. The Poole incident isn't even a league discipline for one so the league isn't going to be involved regardless of the order. I don't care when the Nurkic punch happened that was getting a long suspension regardless of whether it was pre-Rudy or post-Rudy.
How is the Poole one not a league discipline thing---they have jurisdiction over interactions within a practice or game or team's lockerroom too. Just ask Gilbert Arenas! If it reflects on the league they have juristdiction is pretty much what the union agreed to in the CBA, imo.
They literally did nothing. No suspension, no fine, nothing. The team fined Draymond that was it. This shit happens all the time and when does the league ever step in? When there are federal crimes being investigated involving loaded guns. You literally had two guys jawing and a punch thrown at a teammate. These two events are apples and oranges.
I'm sure 12 games and a month is all he needs to get his head right. /s. Dumars needs to not be involved any longer when it comes to Draymond's punishments.. he's too close to the player.
