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Draymond Green is kickin' mad about NBA penalties for his 'unnatural' play

Kelly Dwyer
Draymond Green looks on. (Getty Images)
Draymond Green looks on. (Getty Images)

Draymond Green has some stuff to figure out.

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It’s true that, as a 6-7 “big” forward working at a position that doesn’t suit his height nor heft, utilizing guard skills on both ends of the ball, he has a frame that is going to lend itself toward unusual feints or physical fulminations. Some of those, as you may have noticed, result in a series of post-contact “kicks” that have drawn the ire of opponents, fans, and the league office as it hands down penalties. Prior to asking its referees to punish what it deems avoidable contact.

One of those penalties hit on Thursday, helping seal Houston’s double-overtime win over Green’s Warriors when Draymond was hit with a flagrant-one foul upon review after what could have been a simple trip to the free throw line for Green after gathering an offensive rebound.

Following that loss, at Saturday’s team shootaround, Green took his frustrations to the record. Anthony Slater at The Mercury News was there:

“I just laugh at it,” Green said. “It’s funny how you can tell me how I get hit and how my body is supposed to react. I didn’t know the league office was that smart when it came to body movements. I’m not sure if they took kinesiology for their positions to tell you how your body is going to react when you get hit in a certain position.”

To that end, NBA executive vice president of basketball operations Kiki Vandeweghe – no stranger to bringing a guard’s skill package to the big forward position at 6-7 himself – defended his office’s findings:

“You’re trying your best not to guess what’s in somebody’s head,” VanDeWeghe said. “You’re trying to look at the film and see what it tells you. Is this body movement, given what happened, is it reasonable that this would’ve been a natural movement or a basketball movement? If it is judged unreasonable, then we’re looking at one of these potential penalties, depending on how severe the contact is and where the contact goes.”

Green went on:

“A lot of these guys that make the rules can’t touch the rim, yet they tell you how you’re way up there in the air which way you’re body (is supposed to go). I don’t understand that. That’s like me going in there and saying, ‘Hey, you did something on your paperwork wrong.’ I don’t know what your paperwork looks like.”

Kiki?

“Four members of our competition committee played significant basketball, 10 years-plus,” VanDeWeghe said. “Everyone who is on this committee has been around this league a very long time and takes this very seriously.”

In Green’s defense, experience in the NBA doesn’t always allow for empathy. If Major League Baseball at some point decides to do something about the increased use of the shift tactic against left-handed batters, they shouldn’t heavily rely on right-hander Andre Dawson’s suggestions on whether or not a rule change is necessary. There just aren’t a lot of Draymond Greens floating around. He boasts such a unique skill set that it truly is hard to find a doppelganger in his defense.

Despite Draymond’s attempts.

Green, in discussing the offensive rebound against Houston on Thursday night, dove on in Rockets guard James Harden’s role in creating non-basketball moves in an arena that, until 2014, apparently had no room for any form of trickery and ref-baiting:

“But if you’re going to say it’s an unnatural thing, an unnatural act, no offense to James Harden, but I’ve never seen nobody up until James started doing it that shoots a layup like this under your arm (sweeps arms in a demonstration). That’s really not a natural act either. That’s not a natural basketball play either. But, hey, if you’re going to make a rule, make a rule. But if you’re going to take unnatural acts out the game, then let’s lock in on all these unnatural acts and take them out the game.”

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Harden, speaking to Ben Golliver at Sports Illustrated during an endorsement release, sloughed off Green’s move to lump the Rockets All-Star into the “unnatural” mix:

“I wouldn’t call it unnatural,” Harden said. “For me, I just go to the basket and go up with two hands like you’re taught. If you grab my arm it’s a foul. That’s pretty natural in the sport of basketball, in any league. I don’t know about whatever else [Green] has got going on.”

Meanwhile, as is his paid-for role, Green representative B.J. Armstrong went to bat for his client in a talk with USA Today’s Sam Amick:

“The fact that everyone is trying to cover their positions or justifying why they did what they did, the (league’s perspective) was kind of disappointing from this viewpoint: Since I’ve been a part of this league, I can’t recall when they’ve actually made rules that have actually helped to improve the game of basketball,” Armstrong, whose client was given a Flagrant-1 foul when he kicked Houston Rockets star James Harden on Thursday, told USA TODAY Sports by phone.

“Every move has been made with some motive, to make the game look a certain way, to speed the game up, to do all of these things. But what, when the competition committee — whoever those people are — what have they actually done to improve the game of basketball? … Not to put more people in the stands, not to make the game more appealing for people globally. What has been done to improve the game of basketball? That’s it. That’s it. That’s my only question.”

Armstrong, a Chicago Bull from 1989 through 1995, expectedly went on to discuss his time attempting to play against the defensive-minded, often-flagrant Detroit Pistons champions of 1989 and 1990. B.J. had little success against the team, but for whatever reason wanted to remind NBA viewers of the time “when officials used to warn him about driving the lane for fear of what teams like the bad boy Detroit Pistons might do if he went too far,” as if that was a fun time for all involved, and not a league that was quickly becoming unwatchable save for its star attractions prior to the NBA stepping in to clean things up.

One of the league’s current star attractions, non-throwback Draymond Green, thinks he’d like life better in 1990:

(Note to readers: Draymond Green would not like NBA life better in 1990. He’d adapt in certain areas, but he’d also find it hard to drive to the rim several times a game with both of Dennis Rodman’s arms shoved into his chest, and he’d have a tough time selling his coach on those 5.8 three-pointers a game he currently averages. Even though Don Nelson was the Warriors’ head coach: Chris Mullin averaged half of that, in 1989-90.)

The issue, now that both Green and the league are providing a little-push back, is that Draymond Green is doing what seemed inevitable last spring. He’s kicking more than ever, it seems, in a push to have his “quirk” recognized as something bordering involuntary. Look at what happened, via Tom Ziller at SB Nation in his must-read piece on Draymond, against the Suns on Saturday:

Whether Green was fooling all along, leading up to the Costanza-like “See! See! I told you I was sick all along!”-attempts at legitimizing the kicks, or if he does genuinely have a compulsory issue that renders his limbs uncontrollable is not the point.

The issue here is that the league, as is its right, is not bending. Save for its silence following Draymond’s kick from Saturday.

Vandeweghe made a point to list six players beside Green (including stars LeBron James and Dwight Howard) that have taken in either fouls or fines due to bouts of unnatural motion, and though that’s what authority figures often do prior to being suitably dismissed; the league has at least been consistent.

So has Green, and if he continues to slough these warnings off, it will continue to cost him and his team.

And if Draymond Green has no choice but to flail away? Tough stuff. The NBA can’t have it, and Draymond has to determine just how he’s going to work his way around the new rules. The last thing the NBA wants to do is legislate Draymond Green out of the realm of superstardom, but the league can do just fine without Green kicking that can around.

As such, the onus is on him to figure things out.

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Kelly Dwyer is an editor for Ball Don’t Lie on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at KDonhoops@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!