Good Green, Bad Green – Rockets vs. Warriors Game Two narratives in full spring blossom

Good Greens, Bad Greens, You Know We’ve Had Our Share

That was quite a game from Green last night, good and bad. Good from the sporadically excellent Jalen Green, and bad from the consistently histrionic and awful Draymond Green. Rockets fans shouted their disapproval of Draymond, which is of course what Type B Cluster sorts typically love best, but they weren’t wrong. The wrong here is the supremely self-righteous Steve Kerr whining about about it, based on the factual history of Draymond’s behavior.

The game also featured a bad fall on the part of The Tomballer, Jimmy Butler, when he was undercut by Amen Thompson. This took Jimmy out of the game, which certainly dimmed the Warriors hopes of winning the contest. Some are viewing this as a dirty play. This is simply untrue. The play that injured The Tomballer’s ass was unfortunate, but by no means dirty, as will be demonstrated below. The talk around it is, at best, tedious, shouty, sportstalk fodder and best ignored, and at worst, familiar self-pitying bathos of some entitled Warriors fans, and best mocked and derided for what it is.

Let’s deal with The Case of The Affronted Behind first. It wasn’t dirty. Just stop with that, certain Warriors stans, and other conspiracy weirdos.

Let’s go through the sequence of events.

1. Amen Thompson shoots and misses, he attempts to follow his shot for a rebound.
2. Amen tries to slip between Steven Adams and Draymond Green for the offensive board.
3. Brandin Podziemsky pushes Steven Adams.
4. Steven Adams backs into Amen Thompson, due to the Podz Push.
5. Thompson then pinballs off Dramond Green, who is backing into the rebound,
6. Draymond is, I think, trying to box out either Thompson or Adams with his “posterior pelvic region”, and Amen and Draymond’s feet get tangled.
7. Some have said this is dirty play by Draymond Green, but I don’t think so, and I never presume innocence of Draymond.
8. Thompson at this point starts to lose his footing, and stumbles forward, putting his hand out for balance.
9. Thompson’s hand, head, then shoulder, collides with the backs of Butler’s knees while he’s in mid-air, jumping for the rebound.
10. Thompson falls face first to the floor.
11. Butler falls hard, and flat, on his back and “posterior pelvic region”.
12. Cue controversy.

Here are a couple of videos, so you can see the sequence for yourself.

Here you can see that Thompson is stumbling, and has lost his balance and control of his movement. This makes sense, as why would anyone lead with their head into someone’s leg if they could lead with their shoulder? Amen Thompson is literally the quickest and most coordinated large human being I’ve ever seen in my life. If he chose to do this, he’d use his arm or his shoulder, not his vulnerable head and neck.

In this one you can see here the chain reaction of events that lead to the collision. The push by Podz on Adams, Thompson hitting Adams, then, almost immediately, hitting Draymond’s “posterior pelvic region”, then stumbling into Butler.

For a Tomballer or Warriors fan this is upsetting, and for me, a Thompson fan, it’s upsetting to hear him called out, but neither the play, nor Thompson, is dirty. It’s an unfortunate accident in a contact sport.

Don’t believe me? How about a disinterested party? The well-respected Sam Vecine from The Athletic’s “Game Theory” podcast last night spoke on it. Even if I’m a Rockets stan, Sam Vecine definitely isn’t. His thoughts are in the large pull quote.

There are Warriors players I don’t like, one Warriors player I hate, a Warriors player I admire, but long to see retire, but Jimmy Butler isn’t any of those. I find Jimmy’s arm flailing, run-into-defenders, foul hunting quite annoying, but that’s about it. The rest of his game I admire.

Moving on.

The Rockets crowd chanted “F Draymond” last night. Steve Kerr, a man of The Code, and High Moral Principles took exception to this.

I believe Steve Kerr is, in fact, a man of character and genuinely admirable high principles, outside of literally anything to do with the Warriors, particularly Draymond Green. Outside of him on those subjects, I like and respect him. He is, of course, naturally partisan when it comes to his team. I further believe he has an entirely human, and far from uncommon blind spot to a wrong that benefits him and his team.

I also think the Warriors have been a great team, with the greatest shooter of all time. I like the way they play offense. I admire Steph. I will celebrate when he retires,because he’s murdered my beloved Rockets in the playoffs. I also think long-term success has bred a sense of vast entitlement. As though the Warriors were entitled to win, to get calls, to insist other teams play the way they want them to play, simply because of who the Warriors are, rather than what they do.

Warriors fan – you have become what you hate: Lakers Fan. You truly have. I’m sorry, but there’s no way around this. This happens with very successful teams, and the sense of entitlement often persists long after any significant winning has departed (see Dallas Cowboys fan).

I’m now going to cite history and engage in a bit of “What Aboutery”. In this case it’s instructive, I believe. I think the high minded Kerr and Curry of the Warriors refuse to acknowledge their personal heart of darkness, their legacy of indulgence of truly despicable behavior when it comes to Draymond Green. It’s all the more annoying, of course, because of how much the Kerr and the Warriors use a sense of moral superiority as a means of complaining about anything they don’t like. Some of this of course, is par for the course for humans, generally, but I believe they go above and beyond the norm.

(If you are the sort that believes that anything you can get away with is fine so long as you aren’t stopped, well, go hang out with Draymond, I guess, and stop reading.)

Steph and Steve have benefited so much from the list below that I find their moralizing, their self-righteousness and complaining, hard to stomach.

Here are some things that have occurred with Draymond in the past:

• He was suspended for a considerable time for repeated, heedless and remorseless violent conduct, including literal choke holds on unsuspecting players. We’re told he got better, but let’s be clear, exactly this sort of persistent conduct, lack of personal control, outside of the fantasy world of sports, often lands people in jail or prison.
• He struck and stomped on the fractured face of Mike Conley. I’ve seen at least 4,000 NBA games, by my reckoning. I can recall exactly two contests where a player’s face was stomped upon. Once, when Kevin Love did it to Luis Scola. Love admitted he did it on purpose and apologized. Draymond, of course, claimed innocence. But again, how many stomps on an NBA player’s head do you recall? Any, other than those? Ask yourself how it could happen by accident? Ask yourself if a player with a well documented history of assault on other players should be given any benefit of the doubt? And Green is given that benefit, over and over, because people want to see Steph Curry succeed so much.
• Draymond has at least three documented eye gouges on MVP opponents in the playoffs: LeBron James, Nikola Jokic and James Harden. Somehow these eye gouges ONLY happen to the best opposing player. Remarkable. If they were random they might happen to a non MVP, and yet, they never do. Also ask, how many other bloody eyes, from gouges you have seen for literally ANY other player, let alone at least three times, and only on the best opposing, MVP level, player, NOT associated with Draymond Green?
• Draymond has a history of kicking players in the “anterior pelvic region”, aka the nuts. Steven Adams and LeBron James.
• He grabs, pushes, and “accidentally” strikes players constantly. He screams and claps in the face of referees, with little to no punishment, or even a technical foul.
• If Tari Eason can get a (deserved) technical foul for “Poor Sportsmanship” for gently lobbing a towel, what is the whole of Draymond’s act?
• Maybe you could say one of the things above was “just the way he plays” for an “intense” player. But all of it? I believe the weight of the evidence is more than enough to convict, beyond any reasonable doubt.

I also truly believe Draymond Green is mentally ill and shouldn’t be in the league, as a matter of player safety (see above). There’s no reason to believe he’s changed, because there’s little evidence of change. Certainly one can say “internet doctor” but just how much evidence is required for you? This stuff isn’t mysterious and unknowable. We’re not trying to get to the root of his mother fixation and fear of gerbils. It’s demonstrable and consistent patterns of behavior that make me think this. It’s literal facts.

So when the Warriors or their fans complain of “unfair treatment” and insisting the game be played “The Right Way”, according to “The Code” I can only conclude they are demanding that Draymond be brought to account for all the above and more. Steve Kerr must, in his heart, be insisting Draymond be dismissed from the NBA. It’s the only thing a truly righteous man could want, right Steve?

(Warriors fan – I’m not going to engage with you. The above is my statement and my reasons, fully laid out. You may disagree. That is absolutely your right.)

As for Good Green, well, this is why, frustrating as he is, inconsistent as he is, that neither I, nor the Rockets, have given up on Jalen Green. Because he can do this. If the Rockets get even ³⁄₄ of this from Green, they will be very difficult to beat in the playoffs.

I think it’s worth giving Jalen, and the rest of the young Rockets a bit of a break for Game One. They are all, still, pretty much 23 and under. Game one was their first playoff game, against the vaunted nemesis of the Rockets, the Warriors.

Game Three is Saturday in the Area With A Bay. Houston, also, is located in an area with a bay, but we just think that’s a silly thing to call your home.