The All-Star forward delivered a flagrant blow to Phoenix Suns center in the face during Tuesday’s game
The NBA has suspended Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green indefinitely after the Golden State Warriors forward struck Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkić in the head during Tuesday’s game.
Green was ejected from the game, marking his third ejection of the season. Joe Dumars, NBA executive vice president and head of basketball operations, announced the news in a statement released Wednesday. “This outcome takes into account Green’s repeated history of unsportsmanlike acts,” the statement read, adding that his suspension begins immediately and the forward “will be required to meet certain league and team conditions befoe he returns to play.” The conditions were not specified.
“He was pulling my hip and I was swinging away to sell the call,” Green said after Tuesday’s game, per SF Gate. “I made contact with him. As you know, I’m not one to apologize for things I meant to do, but I do apologize to Jusuf, because I didn’t intend to hit him.”
“We need him, we need Draymond,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr. “He knows that, we’ve talked to him. He’s got to find a way to keep his poise and be out there for his teammates.”
The suspension arrives less than a month since the NBA suspended Greene for five games after he put Minnesota Timberwolves center into a headlock during an altercation, which Green insisted was in self defense.
“I don’t live my life with regrets,” Green told ESPN in November after suspension that month. “I’ll come to a teammate’s defense any time that I’m in a position to come to a teammate’s defense. … What matters to me is how the people that I care about feel, first and foremost. How are the people that I care about affected? How are the people I care about, what do they have to deal with? That’s it for me.”
