Kevin Durant on no Draymond Green suspension: “The league is about business. I get it. There’s no hard feelings.” pic.twitter.com/J9ohlMQquX
— Fred Katz (@FredKatz) May 24, 2016
Call this a shot at the league office if you want. Call it a critique of professional sports in general. And people will obviously call it a jab at at Golden State Warriors.
Our takeaway from Kevin Durant’s explanation of the NBA’s decision not to suspend Draymond Green, though, is that the Oklahoma City Thunder superstar understands both the inevitable realities and contextual nuance of kick-gate.
The league absolutely has a vested interest here. Anyone suggesting otherwise is lying. Game 4 is monumental in a vacuum; the winner of Tuesday’s contest will be a clear-cut title favorite. But Green’s hot-button presence obviously adds even more drama to the biggest game of the season – and that would be true even if he hadn’t caught Steven Adams below the belt.
It’s late May. Basketball should be what decides the outcome of games like this, not an exhausting, next-day review process that apparently includes the work of private investigators. Green is the Warriors’ second-most valuable player; he should be on the court at Chesapeake Energy Arena tonight if there’s any sliver of reasonable doubt with regard to intent.
And there definitely is!
Did the same amount of it exist for Cleveland Cavaliers bench-warmer Dahntay Jones? We say no. An arm isn’t a leg, and he hit Bismack Biyombo with the fourth quarter clock winding toward zero and the game’s outcome well out of reach. There’s simply more reason to believe Jones was violently antagonizing his opponent than Green was.
Like it or not, stakes of the postseason and star power of the perpetrator will inevitably be considered by the league in these situations. Coupled with the specific movement of Green’s violation, the NBA office decided a one-game suspension would be too harsh a punishment.
Durant seems to get it. We just wish everyone showed that same type of measured maturity so the basketball world can focus on what really matters: You know, the games.
