The Lakers and Bucks found themselves in a bit of a brouhaha on Friday night after Malcolm Brogdon fouled Nick Young, which Young took exception to and shoved Brogdon in the back. Greg Monroe then shoved Young by the neck, escalating it into a full blown NBA fight (you know, one where there’s some shoving and yelling but no one actually fights).
https://twitter.com/World_Wide_Wob/status/842953315021344768
Among those tossed from the game were Young, Monroe and D’Angelo Russell, who was accused of escalating the situation by pushing Monroe in the back after he threw Young. Russell didn’t do much else after that push and just sort of stood at the periphery of the rest of the fracas. Lakers coach Luke Walton stood up for Russell, and questioned why he got ejected when he had one push of Monroe and said if Russell hadn’t pushed Monroe after what happened to Young, he “would’ve been pissed off at D’Angelo.”
The good news for Russell is that his coach is happy with him for sticking up for his teammate, but not everyone thinks he did enough. Draymond Green of the Warriors wasn’t pleased with what he saw out of Russell. Green didn’t name him specifically, but based on the video where Russell gets a little shove in and then hops back and remains clear of the middle of the scrap you can pretty easily figure out who he’s talking about in this quote.
Draymond Green on Lakers-Bucks skirmish from last night. He was disappointed with the non-action of a certain Laker guard. pic.twitter.com/VC9wxYIfR8
— Chris Haynes (@ChrisBHaynes) March 18, 2017
First, I love the idea that Draymond Green’s Twitter password is somehow not automatically saved on his phone so he has to remember it to unlock it before he can fire off a tweet storm. I wonder if that’s on purpose as a safety precaution so he has to take an extra second to think before he tweets.
Twitter issues aside, it’s not surprising that Green would be upset that Russell wasn’t trying to do more. Green is the ultimate “team” guy in that he’ll do the dirty work and start something in defense of his teammate. Russell gave a little shove, but didn’t escalate the situation any further than that. Some would say that’s a good thing, no reason to do something reckless, but it’s clear that Green thinks you have to do more and be willing to get in a fight for your teammates.
Russell already has a bit of a rep around the league when it comes to being not a great teammate, not for anything he’s done on the court, but after he posted a video of Nick Young talking about being unfaithful to then girlfriend Iggy Azalea. That made Russell seem like an untrustworthy teammate, and Green clearly thinks that his unwillingness to get in the middle of the fight on Friday night is also a sign that he doesn’t have his teammate’s backs.
