Draymond Green Complains About Unfair Treatment With NBA Not Suspending Jamal Murray

The Golden State Warriors forward believes he would have been "suspended for the playoffs" were he in Murray's shoes.

Draymond Green / Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports

The NBA's decision to simply fine, rather than suspend, Denver Nuggets star Jamal Murray for throwing a heat pack onto the court during live action did not end up mattering very much.

Murray pitched his fit from the bench during his team's Game 2 loss against the Minnesota Timberwolves and was fined $100,000. Were he suspended, the Nuggets might've dropped Game 3, putting the defending champs into a 3-0 hole that no NBA team has ever clawed out of to win. Instead, he played and helped win Game 3, but Denver was ultimately eliminated in seven games.

Regardless of the outcome, Draymond Green is not happy with the process and believes everything would have turned out very differently were he the one throwing things onto the court.

The Golden State Warriors forward appeared on Shaquille O'Neal's podcast and proclaimed that if he threw a heat pad onto the court he would have been suspended for the rest of the playoffs. He then went on to complain that the bar for suspensions is frustratingly inconsistent.

"I would have gotten suspended for the rest of the playoffs, for sure," Green said.

“I would have gotten suspended for the rest of the playoffs.”

- Draymond Green on Jamal Murray’s $100K fine for throwing a heat pack

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"The problem I have oftentimes with the suspensions and different things is like... you don't know what it is," he continued. "Sometimes it's here, sometimes it's there, sometimes it's in between. It just kind of moves. There is no set, 'You do this, you get this. You do that, you get that.' It's all over the place.

"I think it was absolutely insane that you get a $100,000 fine, no suspension, nothing for throwing a heat pack at an official. Man, I throw a word at an official and they throw me under the jail!"

Green's comparisons to his own suspension during the 2016 NBA Finals aren't entirely on point. The NBA might waffle on what constitutes a suspension often, but the league has never budged on handing out flagrant fouls when players get too physical with each other. There is a clearly demarcated line in that regard and Green blew by it by hitting LeBron James (on purpose, as he admits in this very video) and was rightfully awarded a flagrant foul afterwards. Which then forced the NBA to suspend him because he had accumulated too many flagrant fouls in the playoffs prior to that. It is difficult to put a lot of the blame on the league for Green getting too many flagrants, isn't it?

His frustrations about the inconsistency of suspensions are fair enough, though, and felt by more than just the players. Murray definitely should have been suspended. He threw something at an official because he was mad about bad calls. The fact that the league opted to fine him instead is baffling, especially with the NBA's continued efforts to set the precedent that officials are to be treated with the utmost respect at all times.

Ultimately it does not matter because the Warriors didn't make it past the play-in tournament and he was not in a position to push the limits of what's allowed, as is his wont. But Green probably shouldn't be too outraged at the idea that he, a player who was suspended indefinitely for his violence towards another player this very season, would be treated differently than everyone else.