Draymond Green is paying the price for his latest on-court antics.
The NBA has suspended Green for five games for putting a chokehold on Timberwolves big man Rudy Gobert, according to ESPN’s Adrian Wojnarowski.
During the first quarter of the Warriors-Timberwolves game on Tuesday night, before there had even been a basket in the game, Klay Thompson and Jaden McDaniels started tussling at half-court.
The fracas eventually devolved into Green putting Gobert in a headlock.
Thompson, Gobert and McDaniels were each fined $25,000 by the league, per Wojnarowski.
“Not much to say,” Gobert told reporters after the Timberwolves won the game 104-101. “That’s just clown behavior.”
He explained why he did not try to fight back.
“My first thought was just, ‘I’m not going to fight. I need to be in this game to help my team,’” Gobert said. “I just showed the ref that I had my hands up, and I just waited until the situation was over. Nothing more than that. It wasn’t a good enough choke to put me to sleep.”
Green has previously received three suspensions from the NBA, and one from the Warriors.
He was suspended for one game in the playoffs last season for stomping on the chest of Kings power forward Domantas Sabonis and was memorably banned for a game during the 2016 NBA Finals for kicking LeBron James in the nether region.
He also received a suspension for drawing 16 technical fouls last season.
Furthermore, the Warriors suspended Green for a game in 2018 when he had a confrontation with then-teammate Kevin Durant.
Green was actually not suspended by the NBA or the Warriors for punching then-teammate Jordan Poole in the face at practice before last season, but it’s an incident that may have factored into his total body of work when the NBA considered this discipline.
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