Draymond Green has been in many altercations over the course of his 9-year career. As a gritty, emotional type of player, Draymond isn’t afraid to get a little chippy on the basketball court.
Recently, the 3x Champion spoke on the altercation between LeBron James and Isaiah Stewart, stating that he doesn’t believe LeBron purposely meant to draw blood and that the young Pistons big man only responded wildly because his teammates showed up to hold him back.
“You have teammates coming running in, holding the guy back, pullin’ him away from LeBron and I think they may have made him feel like he should be upset because that’s when he went apesh*t,” Draymond Green explained on The Draymond Green Show.
Of course, Draymond also looked back to his own altercation with ‘the King’ in 2016, when his Warriors famously lost in the Finals after blowing a 3-1 lead.
“Isaiah, take it from me. I got into it with LeBron James roughly five years ago,” Green said. “And it didn’t go so well for me. Not that ‘Bron kicked my ass. But he did kick my ass not physically, though, he did kick my ass because he came back from a 3-1 deficit to win a world championship and that shit still stings today.”
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The incident in 2016 wasn’t nearly as dramatic as the situation in Detroit, but it did lead to Draymond having to serve a suspension for Game 5 and it’s a move he probably wishes he could take back today.
This season has seen a number of challenges for James, including his altercation with Stewart, a suspension from the league, and the behavior of two court-side fans who had to be thrown out of a game.
For the rest of the league’s sake, it’s probably not a good idea to get the Lakers superstar any angrier than he probably already is.
But Draymond is never one to back down and if he and LeBron happen to meet again in the playoffs, you can expect another gritty and hard-fought battle.
