Warriors forward Draymond Green has been fined $50K by the NBA for making an “inappropriate comment that questions the integrity of game officials,” the league announced today in a press release (Twitter link).
As Shams Charania of ESPN tweets, the fine is believed to be a response to a moment that occurred late in the fourth quarter of Game 3 and was captured on ESPN’s broadcast (YouTube link via The Pat McAfee Show).
While his sideline remarks couldn’t be heard on the broadcast, Green appeared to be telling his teammates that the Timberwolves were favored by 5.5 coming into the game and saying, “I know what they’re doing,” referring to the game’s officials. Golden State trailed by eight points at the time before hitting a three-pointer to make the final score 102-97.
The NBA, which doesn’t take kindly to any implication from its players that its referees are attempted to influence the outcome of games for gambling purposes, presumably concluded that’s what Green was doing here.
Luka Doncic, Trae Young, and Rudy Gobert are among the players who have been fined in recent seasons for rubbing their fingers together in a “money” gesture aimed at referees.
Yeah, but when I say it on here, I’m a “conspiracy theorist nutjob”, riiiiiight…..
Draymond just seems like a guy I wouldn’t want to be around because of garbage like this. Some people court controversy and feed off it and Draymond is one of them. $50k just so happens to be the cost of the drug this time but no way he doesn’t get a serotonin hit from playing the victim.
Green did not say this to the media or anyone. Just talking with a team mate and ESPN was spying on him and showed the clip for viewership. ESPN will do anything for ratings.
IDK if he is right or not…
…but it does bother me that he knew the game line going into the game.
Maybe I’m naive, but it feels wrong to me to have players thinking about the betting line.
You aren’t alone. The way gambling has taken over the big pro sports leagues in this country has cheapened all those leagues in a way not many are clocking yet, but soon will. ESPN should have nothing to do with gambling, not running gambling programs and tickers all day. It sickens me to see that.
Gambling is a cancer on humanity.
It’s sort of hard to take the NBA seriously when they are just promoting Fan Duel, etc. and then fine players for this information. Online gambling is rampant and it feels hypocritical that they’ll fine this while at the same time, Kevin Hart is in an ad talking about boosts or whatnot the next second LOL
NBA is just mad people know what is going on. How many games you watch and fouls are called that wasn’t called in the other 3 quarters??
I totally agree.
It feels almost blatant sometimes when some refs will change how they call the game differently from the first half into the second half. There’s been way too many games where they are allowing a lot of contact/aggressiveness and then pivot in the second half.
I mean it’s likely not true, but have you ever noticed how many lay-ups the Warriors miss. It’s a lay-up. It’s literally the easiest bucket to make. But the Warriors miss dozens a game. Why would pro athletes who are the best in the world not be able to do the easiest thing in the game? Corruption.
“Dozens” is a stretch, but they are the kings of missed layups. But you don’t need corruption to explain it, it’s simpler than that. They’re just not very good.
D-leagers tend to miss easy shots.
@xdrta – I’m glad you actually admit they miss an absurd amount of layups. Why is that so? Only logical answer: Kerr is bad at his job.
Let’s see how the theories work out. Knicks have a 4.5 advantage and T-wolves a 10.5 advantage. Both Knicks and T-wolves should get the foul calls their way in the first half.
Well, that will prove nothing but it will keep folks busy.
Okay go watch baseball then with robot umps that sounds like a blast.
got to be better than watching Angel Hernandez ump a game…
temu Horace Grant is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the referees fixing NBA games over the last 10 years
Draymond is a first ballot hall of famer and you dont know ball in the slightest if you really think he is “temu Horace Grant”. Horace Grant is 6’10”.
Couldn’t fine this grub enough.
Idiotic statements like DG’s don’t reflect reality and aren’t helpful in dealing with the league’s real problems. The league doesn’t make, nor does it care about who wins and loses, bets.
Unfortunately, one of the NBA’s real problems is its officiating problem, which is quite bad and getting worse. Silver has tried to put a bandaid over it for this year’s playoffs, presumably to make them at least somewhat watchable. We’ll see if it holds.
If some of these conspiracy theories are true, it’s possible the NBA would want the Golden State Warriors to win game 5 tonight.
My thinking for this is that the ratings for game 6 on Sunday with Curry possibly returning would be beneficial for the league as a whole. So let’s see how the refs do tonight and let’s see if this is true.
The only caveat would be that it would be way too obvious to even the casual fan that the league was setting up a game 6 and Curry’s return.
Maybe they sacrifice this game for that reason.., it would be too obvious?
But let’s watch and see. Billions of dollars sweeps a temporary, obvious, “the fix is in” claim under the rug.
To give you a little background, the reason why I put so much Creedence into “the fix is in,” is that there’s a video of Andre Iguodala and Evan Turner speaking about this very thing
Andre was very hesitant to say something, but Evan Turner came out and said
“I’ll say it I don’t care, if you want to win by two, but you’re not supposed to win, you’ve got to beat them by 15. You have to play in such a way to beat them by 15 to overcome the fix and you might win by two.”
I know it’s just one video, but there’s been a lot of smoke in the area of predetermined outcomes for years.
Personally, These two guys speaking on it gives the whole thing a little more clarity.
I believed this until last game tbh hahaha … especially with Scott Foster in.
Then I saw them give Draymond some really ridiculous foul calls and then I knew, it wasn’t going to happen.
So they basically make sports gambling synonymous with the NBA and fine a guy for talking about it? That’s dumb.
Glad they hit a 3 and ruined the spread, I hope most people lost money and go to a gamblers anon meeting.
What integrity?!?!?
Since when do the referees have any integrity, seriously?
Hate seeing guys fined for saying it as it is!