With about $4 million in fines and suspensions over his career, Draymond Green has long been on the wrong end of the NBA’s rulebook. In a daring move, he stood at the podium after the Golden State’s 110-105 win over the Sacramento Kings on Tuesday and called on the league to punish teams the same way it punishes players, and the irony was hard to miss.
However, the league’s response was even harder to stomach. Green watched as the Kings’ head coach instructed Doug McDermott to foul Seth Curry. And with three minutes remaining and Sacramento still holding a lead, it was a move Green bluntly labeled as tanking, saying: “I saw a team tonight foul Seth Curry with three minutes to go for no reason,” Green said. “I get fined when I do wrong. Just fine the hell out of people. We love taking money from players. Keep fining the teams… Now it becomes time to punish teams, and all of a sudden, nobody will know what to do.”
The NBA launched an investigation into the incident and closed it without disciplinary action. The league announced on Thursday that the Kings’ head coach, Doug Christie, believed that his team was not yet in the penalty and instructed the foul to stop the clock and preserve a timeout, a strategic miscalculation, not an act of deliberate misconduct. The verdict was no punishment for Sacramento, and Green’s appeal, sharp as it was, went unheeded.
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The foul itself was unmistakably deliberate. McDermott fouled Seth, a career 86.4% free-throw shooter, with 3:15 left on the clock, while Sacramento was both in the penalty and leading the game 101-100. After the foul, Golden State then went on a 10-4 run to close out the game and handed Sacramento its 59th loss of the season.
For Green, the Kings’ record told the full story. Sacramento’s 21-59 mark tied the Utah Jazz for the league’s fourth-worst record, which will keep them firmly in the hunt for a top draft pick.
The call for accountability didn’t stop at the Kings. Green estimated that roughly 12 teams across the league were actively trying to lose games, pointing out that only the Jazz and Pacers had been fined by the league this season.
“If my math serves me correctly, that’s 10 that ain’t been fined,” he said. “We don’t keep that same energy when it comes to teams.” ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith echoed that sentiment, saying Green was “1,000% right” and that tanking falls on franchises, not players who are simply following orders.
The Man Demanding Accountability Has Paid His Share of It
Something is striking about Draymond Green becoming the league’s most vocal critic of institutional leniency. Over his career, the four-time champion has accumulated close to $1 million in fines alone. These include six suspensions totaling over $3.2 million in lost pay, bringing his total disciplinary cost to more than $4.2 million.
The NBA has never hesitated to act when Green crossed a line. They cite his “repeated history of unsportsmanlike acts” to justify escalating punishments. His indefinite suspension in December 2023, which was handed down after he struck Jusuf Nurkić in the face, was a direct consequence of that paper trail.
That history is precisely what gives his argument its edge. Green didn’t speak as someone shielded from consequences; instead, he spoke as someone made to feel them more acutely than most.
According to one analysis of the situation, the NBA’s investigation into the Kings was at least in part driven by public embarrassment, as the league had fined only two teams all season for tanking-related behavior, and Green’s postgame remarks went viral before the front office could get ahead of the story.
The ruling that followed, no fine, no consequence, and a coach’s mistake, landed as exactly the kind of double standard Green predicted at the podium. The league that never missed a chance to dock his check found a reason to look the other way when a franchise made a decision that appeared far more damaging to the integrity of the game.
