Draymond Green made $25mil last year. I'm not talking about throughout his entire career - just his salary for last season for $25mil. Granted, he's not going to take all that money home. But let's say he does bank about half of it, i.e. $13mil. That's the type of money most of us dream of, the type of which if we were able to generate, especially within a single year, would instantly go about quitting our jobs.
The reason I'm bringing that up is because I don't believe Draymond needs "therapy" or any of that shit that the media or Steve Kerr and them may be talking about. Green has always been, excuse my French, an asshole, the type of player which if you crossed him or one of his beloved teammates the wrong way, you can probably expect some type of on-court, physical retaliation. In the NBA they refer to such players as "enforcers", and they're usually a valued part of a team's roster, especially if the team is actually winning. For instance, if the Grizzlies had managed to beat the Lakers during last season's playoffs, then Dillon Brooks would have came out looking more like a hero than a pariah.
Under normal circumstances, these types of players tend to become more reserved with age. It may not have anything to do with them becoming more compassionate or peaceful per se but more like people in general just tend to fight less as they grow older. But instead, we see Draymond getting worse, dangerous even. And I believe that whether consciously or subconsciously, he's trying to send a message.
When I refer to his recent antics, I'm talking about the shit that's happened this year, not him snuffing Jordan Poole in 2022. Him attacking Poole like that, all factors considered, was perhaps to be expected. Sometimes, shit like that can even help the team's chemistry and comradery. But as I've argued in the past, the Splash Bros. + Draymond, let's say for their own respective reasons, never rightfully embraced Poole as the future leader of the Dubs he was poised to be. And now, they're smarting for it.
Draymond, say, yoking Ruby Gobert on court, of course he has to know that an action like that can get him in serious trouble with the NBA. Shit happens sometimes, but still. Over the years, the league has firmly established the fact that they're not tolerant of thugism. Part of it, like with Ja Morant for instance, may have to do with the image athletes portray. But another aspect of it I believe is that some of these guys are from the 'hood or whatever, you know, like Javaris Crittenton and them. And if you take the reins off, they can really do something stupid.
So the point I was trying to make in the first paragraph is that human psychology can be a tricky thing. For example, as much as many of us may hate our jobs, there's something inside that will not allow us to quit. Usually, I guess you can say it's a fear of the future that prevents us from doing so. So you would think that someone who makes tens of millions of dollars annually wouldn't have that fear. But you know, people tend to accumulate debt in accordance to their income. And also, there could be deeper psychological factors.
For instance with most of us, if we were to suddenly quit our jobs, all we'd have to worry about is like our girlfriends or family members calling us stupid. But imagine if, say, an NBA player, a star even, were to suddenly quit? Remember what Ja went, how people were calling him dumb and all types of shit, even though he didn't actually break, as far as I know, any written rule.
There was this other dude back in the day named Royce White. You could just tell, or at least I could, that even though he had the physicality and the talent, his spirit wasn't for the NBA. I'm on his Wikipedia page right now, and it's saying that dude also had a very serious fear of flying, which, by the way, is an activity NBA players engage in regularly. But at the end of the day, that didn't tank his NBA career as much as the fact that he appeared disinterested.
CONCLUSION
So my personal belief is that the reason Draymond is acting out is because he wants to quit. Another thing about these NBA players it that they're actually under contract, which is another reason they can't just quit like that. But whether Green is doing so consciously or subconsciously, he no longer comes off as someone who actually wants to be out there. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the Warriors are not only suck but also, unlike when they also stunk a few years back, are doing so in a way that doesn't offer much optimism for the future of their long-standing core (or Steve Kerr, imo).
And the same may be true for Morant also. If you really pay attention to what he says, you'd get the impression that he'd probably bounce if he had, you know, a gazillion dollars or whatever. No amount of money, once you become accustomed to it, is ever enough to quit.
Being an NBA player is what most of us consider a dream job, but of course the reality is different from the fantasy. It's very rare, if ever, you come across someone who, granted the opportunity to become a high-paid, famous professional athlete just isn't interested. But maybe sometimes, after doing it for a while, some players respectively get bored and want to quit, but the money and fame is so much that they can't.
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