Draymond Green’s name popped up in a report on Thursday morning about Phoenix Suns owner Robert Sarver. In the aftermath of a Golden State Warriors win over the Suns, Sarver reportedly used the n-word on multiple occasions in a conversation with then-head coach Earl Watson, asking why Green was allowed to say it but he is not.
Sarver denied the incident — which Watson said, on the record, happened — in a statement through his lawyers to ESPN, mentioning that a player on the Suns got a technical foul for using the n-word during a game:
In the case of the Oct. 30, 2016, game versus the Warriors, Sarver and his lawyers wrote that Sarver did not have that conversation with Watson but had one with a Suns player who had received a technical foul for what they said was using the N-word during the game. Sarver said he encouraged the player to appeal the technical foul because Green had used the word in the game — the technical foul was later rescinded by the league.
In response to this story hitting the internet, Green took to Twitter and shared his thoughts on the situation in Phoenix.
But I was fined?? Lol smh
— Draymond Green (@Money23Green) November 4, 2021
This incident didn’t lead to Green getting any sort of reprimand from the league, but in 2020, he drew the NBA’s ire for comments he made about Devin Booker. Green was hit with a $50,000 fine for tampering after saying on Inside the NBA that “They gotta get Book out of Phoenix. I need my man to go somewhere where he can play great basketball all the time and win, because he’s that type of player.”
While the winning has come for Booker and the Suns, it appears Green still believes that there are major issues in Phoenix that were put on display by ESPN.