Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors received his sixth career suspension after hitting Jusuf Nurkić in the face earlier this month.
Since the suspension, reportedly set for around three weeks, NBA’s head of basketball operations, Joe Dumars, wanted to make it a point that this decision is one of rehabilitation, not one to form any malice.
“I don’t think that dealing with player issues (has) to simply be punitive,” Dumars told The Athletic’s Mike Vorkunov. “I don’t believe that. I think there’s also an obligation to help these young guys get better in maturing and how to deal with things. So often, we say he should be suspended for the rest of the year, or he should be suspended for — OK.
“We have to administer punishment, but I also believe that we can’t discard these guys either,” he added. “These are human beings. And if we can administer the punishment and help at the same time, then we should try to do that. And I think that’s what you see here and what we’re trying to do right now as opposed to just suspend them and send them away and then that’s it. That’s just not what we’re trying to do here.”
Dumars, after the suspension, seemingly referred to Green as a “repeat offender” in this instance, so the number of games wasn’t as important as the reasoning behind it. He didn’t believe there was a minimal threshold.
According to The Athletic, there will be a process for the four-time All-Star to return to play, but they haven’t had the specifics as to what that will entail.
