Draymond Green may or may not have intentionally tripped Enes Kanter
Some 24 hours removed from escaping suspension for his swift kick to Steven Adams’ apples, whether intentional or not, you may think Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green would be more careful.
Count Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr among those who felt that way. “Draymond is going to have be very careful,” he warned reporters before Game 4. “One Flagrant 1, and he’ll be suspended.”
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Except, “I’m never going to be careful,” Green predictably told the media after Golden State’s pregame shootaround on Tuesday, “I’m just going to be me and the game will play out the way it will play out.”
So it did, with Green on the giving end in another leg-related tangle-up, this time with OKC’s Enes Kanter.
That would be Green sweeping the leg of Kanter as the Oklahoma City Thunder big man loses the ball in a collision at the top of the key, leading to an early second-quarter Klay Thompson layup after no whistle was blown. As was the case with the groin kick, it’s almost impossible to determine Green’s intent to trip.
The All-Star forward does hold up his hands and retract his legs, as if to say, “Whoops,” although as with everything else involving Green in recent days, that could be interpreted as him covering his own behind.
Either way, the crew that runs Oklahoma City’s in-game entertainment at Chesapeake Energy Arena had fun with Green’s trip of Kanter, repeatedly showing the replay on the Jumbotron during the Game 4 win.
With Green one Flagrant point away from a single-game suspension and the Warriors facing potential elimination in Game 5, this entanglement has some folks — namely ESPN.com’s Brian Windhorst — wondering if the NBA will look into whether Green should retroactively be assessed a Flagrant 1 foul.
Windhorst cited the NBA’s own video rulebook, which explicitly cites a defender intentionally tripping an opponent as an example of a Flagrant 1 foul, although intent in the example provided is far more obvious:
If the NBA does decide to examine Green’s trip of Kanter, the league could be entering a rabbit hole it may never find a way out of, what with the Thunder’s Russell Westbrook tripping Green a few plays later:
It’s probably best for the league to just let these plays slide and slow the discussion to a crawl, since more time was spent debating Green’s kick to Adams’ groin than the fact Oklahoma City ripped out the heart of Golden State’s offense on the court — a subject our own Dan Devine tackled quite brilliantly.
Still, you have to feel for Kanter, who not only got tripped, but also required four stitches on his chin after apparently catching an errant arm from — who else but — Green, in just nine short minutes on the floor.
But that’s nine minutes more than Green could be playing in Game 5 if the NBA launches another inquiry.
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Ben Rohrbach is a contributor for Ball Don’t Lie and Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
