Putting Rudy Gobert in a headlock is self-sabotage, not self-care

Who turned up the spice level in the In-Season Tournament?!

Good morning. Lots of images of garish basketball courts, so click the headline to open in a browser or app. Let’s basketball.

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Less than two minutes into the rematch between the upstart Minnesota Timberwolves and the gilded Golden State Warriors, this happened. 107 seconds in, actually. Boxing matches take longer to get cookin’ than this did.

What a frame. What. A. Frame.

I apologize that the clip above uses the Warriors’ broadcast crew, who decides to blame Jaden McDaniels impulsively because Klay Thompson never gets involved in extracurricular activity, despite the fact that post-injuries he actually does. He’s become a pretty entertaining trash-talker and pot-stirrer. Respect that. Meanwhile, Bob Fitzgerald having the temerity to say that Draymond Green “usually gets the raw end of the stick” when these type of incidents are adjudicated — yes, sure, it’s Draymond who is the victim here. I understand that Fitz is paid by and embedded with the team, but so are other play-by-play announcers and they aren’t this … nakedly contemptuous of any opposition? Anyways …

The upshot of the fracas: Jaden McDaniels and Klay Thompson were both ejected for swinging each other around by the collars, and Draymond Green was ejected for putting Rudy Gobert in a headlock as Gobert appeared to be trying to pull Klay away from McDaniels.

I’m sure that whenever Green speaks on it he’ll claim that Gobert’s chin clamped down on Green’s arm and that he (Green) was trying to get away, and in fact he now has bicep soreness from Gobert’s dirty play. There’s always an excuse.

A suspension could be on the table for Green, too, given his actions in recent games. In the Warriors’ last three games, Draymond:

• Got ejected for shoving Donovan Mitchell in transition off ball, a move that would have went uncalled had Mitchell not retaliated, sparking a review.

• Trash talked Anthony Edwards after a hard foul, inadvertently sparking an Ant Man takeover down the stretch and putting into motion the greatest Draymond diss an NBA player has ever spoken: “Ain’t nobody worried about you.”

• Got ejected for headlocking Rudy Gobert in a fracas two minutes into a game.

Remember, the league has been clear that past actions inform future discipline. They said as much after the Sabonis stomp in the playoffs last season. And Green has, at this point, more history with the disciplinary system than any other player in the league.

That’s worrisome for the Warriors, who have lost four straight to fall to .500. Stephen Curry missed Tuesday’s game with a sore knee. It doesn’t sound like he’ll miss too much time, but you would also expect the Warriors to be hypercautious at this point in the season. Any game without Steph is difficult to win. Any game without Steph or Draymond is really difficult. Green is still a very good player, made especially good on offense when paired with Curry. The Warriors are not deep enough to survive many games without both of them, especially with Andrew Wiggins deep in the struggle zone.

The other thing Green may need to worry about is that it appears other players are thinking of him more frequently like a punchline. Perhaps inspired by Edwards’ recent responses to Green, Gobert went exceptionally hard (for Gobert) in his post-game comments. From the great Jon Krawczynski of The Athletic:

Damn. I don’t think there is data to back this up, but the fact that someone like Gobert is willing to say that two-plus hours after the incident, and after his team won the game is a sign that whatever respect existed for Green’s success and central place as a pre-eminent Tough Guy in the NBA is cracking.

I’m not sure anyone on the Grizzlies or Kings or Wolves or in previous decades the Cavaliers or Rockets or Blazers has been afraid of Green. But as an observer to his career and the Warriors’ dynasty, I felt like other players respected Draymond. That element seems to be fading away. Between Mitchell checking him physically, Ant checking him verbally and Gobert dusting him in the media — the signs of a reputational demise are there, even if he’s still damn effective on the court.

The thing is that this is just as likely to make Draymond more Draymond. Respect and deference are what he demands. That’s evident in his back-and-forth with Edwards: he accusing Ant of failing to be tough, which doesn’t seem to bother Ant, who makes the far harsher claim: that no one is worried about Draymond. That he’s irrelevant. That he’s unworthy of respect.

And then Ant torched the Warriors down the stretch, which included a shot over Green. And then Ant kept demonstrably talking to the Warriors and everyone in the afterglow.

We’ll never know whether that experience — that dismissal of Draymond by Edwards a couple nights ago — directly led to heightened agitation from Green (already running with a very high baseline agitation) leading to his Gobert headlock and ejection.

This element — Green’s accelerating self-sabotage, going back (as all things do) to the Jordan Poole punch — is worth monitoring as the aging Warriors hang onto Curry’s coattails for dear life. The margin for error is smaller than ever for Golden State, and the team can’t afford Green dipping into this well on a consistent basis. He’s too important to the team’s path to success.

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In-Season Tournament Day 3 Recap

East A

Pacers 132, Sixers 126 — And just like that, Indiana ends Philly’s winning streak and takes control of East A in the tournament. The Pacers in the knockouts? That’s some good stuff. Let’s get Tyrese Haliburton in front of a wider audience. 33-7-15 in this game. Over the past two games, he has 32 assists and zero turnovers. Indiana plays at the league’s second highest pace. How is this possible?

I said New Steve Nash last week. You know what? Nash never protected the ball this well while putting up gaudy assist numbers and shooting efficiently. Ten games, Haliburton’s season has been statistically better than any Steve Nash season. And separate from that, all the advanced metrics point to an MVP candidate. Right now, in 2023-24.