Draymond Green was unhappy with a non-call on Saturday. Thirty seconds later, he was out of the game.
The Golden State Warriors star was ejected from a game against the Utah Jazz in the second quarter, when he took issue with the officials not calling three seconds on Jazz big man Kyle Filipowski. He was so incensed he walked out of the paint to berate umpire Simone Jelks — which gave Jazz star Lauri Markkanen a path for an easy dunk.
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Jelks hit Green with a technical foul after the play. He kept going, and soon received another tech and an automatic ejection.
The ejection continues a contentious stretch for the 35-year-old, who was also ejected on Dec. 20 for shoving a Phoenix Suns player. Four days later, he left a game after a heated argument with Warriors head coach Steve Kerr in a timeout huddle.
And in November, he was calling out his teammate’s desire to win and confronting a New Orleans Pelicans fan for repeatedly calling him “Angel Reese,” for which only received a verbal warning. He’s missed seven games for the Warriors this season, three of which were due to a foot injury.
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Green has done all of this while averaging some of his lowest numbers in years, and the Warriors have been outscored with him on the court in nine of the past 10 games he’s played. That might be part of the reason they’ve begun a make-or-break season with an 18-17 record.
Green is certainly no stranger to turbulence both inside and outside the Warriors’ building, but the fact that a three-seconds non-call was all it took to get him ejected here might be an unflattering reaction of where things are at with an always-mercurial player.