Warriors’ Draymond Green Suspended Indefinitely for Striking Jusuf Nurkić

The NBA has suspended Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green indefinitely after he struck Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkić in the head during Tuesday’s game.

Green was ejected from the game, marking his third ejection of the season. Joe Dumars, NBA executive vice president and head of basketball operations, announced the news in a statement released Wednesday. “This outcome takes into account Green’s repeated history of unsportsmanlike acts,” the statement read, adding that his suspension begins immediately, and the forward “will be required to meet certain league and team conditions before he returns to play.” The conditions were not specified.

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“He was pulling my hip and I was swinging away to sell the call,” Green said after Tuesday’s game, per SF Gate. “I made contact with him. As you know, I’m not one to apologize for things I meant to do, but I do apologize to Jusuf, because I didn’t intend to hit him.”

“We need him, we need Draymond,” said Warriors coach Steve Kerr. “He knows that, we’ve talked to him. He’s got to find a way to keep his poise and be out there for his teammates.”

The suspension arrives less than a month since the NBA suspended Greene for five games after he put Minnesota Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert into a headlock during an altercation, which Green insisted was in self defense.

“I don’t live my life with regrets,” Green said in November after his suspension that month, per ESPN. “I’ll come to a teammate’s defense any time that I’m in a position to come to a teammate’s defense… What matters to me is how the people that I care about feel, first and foremost. How are the people that I care about affected? How are the people I care about, what do they have to deal with? That’s it for me.”

In April, Green was ejected in the fourth quarter of a game against the Sacramento Kings after stomping on the chest of Domantas Sabonis. The incident occurred as Sabonis slipped after a King’s miss and grabbed Green’s leg. After dismissing the grab at first, Green stomped on Sabonis’ chest. Green was later suspended for one game of the Warriors’ first round series against the Kings in this year’s playoffs.

Ahead of the 2022-2023 season, Green punched then-teammate Jordan Poole during an October 2022 training camp. The incident clouded the Warriors throughout their campaign, a sentiment echoed by Kerr in May.

“Anytime some trust is lost, then it makes the process much more difficult, and there was some trust lost,” Kerr told ESPN after losing to the Los Angeles Lakers in the Western Conference semifinals. “That’s as blunt as I can be. We have to get back to what has made us really successful, which is a really trusting environment and a group that relies on one another and makes each other better.”

“There’s no hiding from it — the incident with Draymond and Jordan at the beginning of the year played a role in that,” the Warriors coach added. “It’s hard for that not to impact a team.”

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