Why Draymond Green stomped on Damontas Sabonis: The Kings made him taste his own medicine | Opinion

I’ve always liked Draymond Green as a player and still do, the day after he stomped on Kings big man Damontas Sabonis. Green has always been entertaining. He’s passionate. Big men like him usually don’t have his skill set, his ability to run the floor, hit 3-point shots, and disrupt games as much with his brain as his brawn.

It’s unfortunate Green was suspended for purposely stepping on Sabonis because the games are always better when Green is playing. A series victory for the Kings over the defending champion Golden State Warriors would be even sweeter if it was accomplished with Green on the floor. If Monday’s night game was any indication, Green would be screaming the whole way as the Warriors went down to a series defeat.

Green seemed to believe that egging on the partisan crowd at Golden 1 Center would fire up his teammates to win. It didn’t, they still lost 114-106 because the Kings – at least in these first two games – were younger, faster, and more hungry than the Warriors. Green could do nothing to change that, so his taunting the crowd actually seemed a bit sad.

Green didn’t resemble the NBA tough guy he’s been for a decade. He seemed more like a performer whose act has grown tired and predictable.

If Green hadn’t been suspended, there would be no Warriors excuses if the Kings were able to finish off the premiere team of the NBA for the last decade.

That still remains an if. The Warriors are more than capable of turning this series around in San Francisco on Thursday and Sunday and then riding their greatness and experience to a series win over the young Sacramento Kings.

Green’s tricks aren’t working

But make no mistake, and Green would never admit this, but was mad on Monday because his old, disruptive tricks weren’t working. Green seemed mad, because Sabonis had an epic game on Monday no matter what Green, or Kevon Looney, did to try to stop Sabonis. They couldn’t. When Green has encountered a skilled adversary before, his default setting has been to intimidate and distract his rivals by crossing the line or bullying his opponent to get him out of his game.

Sabonis never took the bait. He never reacted to Green and remained focused on the game. The kind of game that Monday was is the kind of game the Kings routinely lost over 17 miserable years until this moment.

And even in their glory days, the central weakness of the Kings was that their main rivals – the Shaquille O’Neal-Kobe Bryant Los Angeles Lakers – got in their heads. As much as we love Kings greats Chris Webber and Vlade Divac and that whole early 2000s crew, they spent too much time worrying about the calls of referees and the taunts of Laker greats.

Those Lakers teams always beat those great Kings teams psychologically.

Sabonis played him

That’s Green’s game and he tried to play it Monday, but instead, Sabonis played him. He held Green’s foot, presumably to prevent Green from running up court while Sabonis was flat on his back. Or was Sabonis trying to play the player?

It worked.

Sabonis got a foul and Green was ejected and, late Tuesday, was suspended by Commissioner Adam Silver.

The weakness of Green is that when he is agitated and provoked, he tries to hurt his tormentor. In the pre-season, he punched a teammate and caused his other teammates to say he needed to regain their trust. One wonders if, deep down, they are asking themselves if they can trust Green because – though they stuck up for him publicly – any objective person would agree that Green lost it to the detriment of his team.

No, Sabonis was not innocent. But how many times has Green been guilty of doing a variation of what Sabonis did Monday? And how many times have the Warriors and their fans laughed at Green getting away with it?

That’s why Green was as triggered as Warriors fans on Monday. They got a dose of their own medicine and didn’t like how it tasted.

Meanwhile, Sabonis and his teammates didn’t react to Green’s aggression except to double their efforts on the court to pull away from Golden State at the end.

Again, the Warriors are still the champions and they could still turn this around. But it’s not going to be easy because, unlike past Kings teams, this one doesn’t mind fighting – or crossing the line to get under the skin of an opponent.

That’s why Green and Warriors fans were so mad. They all got played.

This story was originally published April 18, 2023 at 11:54 AM.

Marcos Bretón

Opinion Contributor,

The Sacramento Bee

916-321-1096

Marcos Bretón oversees The Sacramento Bee’s Editorial Board. He’s been a California newspaperman for more than 30 years. He’s a graduate of San Jose State University, a voter for the Baseball Hall of Fame and the proud son of Mexican immigrants.