The Draymond Green Bed The NBA Made

Every decision has unintended consequences. We see it all the time. Many times we end up saying "Well I didn't see that happening". This is exactly what happened to the NBA.

One of, if not the biggest story this season is the suspension of Draymond Green. It has been labeled as indefinite, which leads to a lot of ambiguity. The narrative is to let him get the help he needs but what it really does is protect him and soften the blow of the punishment. At what point do the rest of the NBA players get protection from the few repeat offenders. I would have preferred hearing a number of games. That way we can gauge how the NBA really views Draymond's actions.

The important part to all of the is how did we get here. We have to go back to the 80's era. The players of that time are now looked at as the fighters of the NBA. The internet is plastered with videos of fights and battles between the stars and teams of that time. Anyone growing up watching that understood that was part of the game. Then when the 90's came, the NBA wanted to "clean up" its play. Fair. Through their research, they decided it was best to change the image of the league. Here is where the unintended consequences applies.

So one thing that the NBA implemented was preventing teams from getting involved with player skirmishes. That is one way to move towards limiting fights. Now this conversation can not be had without the mentioning of the Malice in the Palace. This fight happened to be the tipping point for the league to go full force into changing the fighting policy. Rightfully so, major fines and punishments were handed out. Fans were involved and the fight endangered people outside of the game. Anyway, here's how this change in fight policies lead to Draymond Green and his current situation.

One thing that was understood about the players in the 80's is if you passed a lick, expect a lick back. Players and teams were allowed to fight back and protect themselves. You made a conscious decision of who to hit based on what repercussions came with it. Certain players weren't hit carelessly because they had the ability to return the favor. When the policy changed, so did the player's ability to defend themselves change. Now players have to accept the cheap shot and hope the NBA gives a punishment worthy of the crime.

The reels making the rounds on the internet are showing all the hits and kicks and chokes that Draymond dished out. In every case, the opposing player or team did not retaliate, partially for fear of the punishment they would receive for their actions. None of the NBA's punishments were a deterent for "cleaning up" Draymond's acts. I do know one thing that would have helped. Can you imagine him kicking Charles Oakley or Xavier McDaniels or Maurice Lucas? What about Zach Randolph or Otis Thorpe? Do you think he would get away with it more than once? Do you even think he would still be attacking people if Steven Adams was allowed to hit him back? Now we're at the point where people are looking at this situation as a crisis when some of this could have been averted a long time ago.

The issue is the NBA took away the balance of hard fouls or cheap shots. Also, a barely mentioned fact is the cache built up by having Steve Kerr and Steph Curry on the team protecting Draymond from suffering any serious consequences. As with anyone that doesn't have true accountability, Draymond escalated his actions. Unfortunately, for the image of the NBA, they have the unintended consequence of ending up with a player that seems to be uncontrollable by his repeated non-basketball actions.