“I suspended more games than you played in your career”: Draymond Green unleashes savage mockery on Nikola Jovic's one-game suspension
As someone who is known to be an agitator on the court, Draymond Green has racked up his fair share of suspensions in his career. On his podcast, the Golden State Warriors forward relayed some words of wisdom to a recently suspended player.
Over the weekend, the NBA handed out punishments to the Miami Heat and New Orleans Pelicans for their recent scuffle. Among those to be suspended is forward Nikola Jovic, who's forced to sit out one game. He's being repramanded because he left the bench when Jimmy Butler and Naji Marshall got into a fight.
On his podcast, Draymond Green touched on Jovic's suspension. He feels the player and the team need to know better then to let situations like this happen.
"The young fella Jovic left the bench. Come on young fella even I know better than that, and I've been suspended more games than you have played in your career," Green said. "Who is over there on that bench telling him hey man, no?"
Jovic, 20, is in the midst of his second season with the Miami Heat. Overall, he has played 38 NBA games since being drafted 27th overall in 2022.
Draymond Green's suspensions this season almost match Nikola Jovic's games played
While he said it as a joke, Draymond Green's remark regarding Nikola Jovic was accurate. Even looking at this season alone, his suspenions almost match the career games played by Jovic.
Overall, Draymond Green has been issued two suspensions by the NBA this season. The first time was at the beginning of the year for a fight that broke out between the Golden State Warriors and Minnesota Timberwolves.
During the altercation, Green was seen choking Rudy Gobert. These actions resulted in a five-game suspension.
Later in the season, Green was handed a much longer suspension. That happened after he punched Jusuf Nurkic in the face during a matchup against the Phoenix Suns. The NBA made him sit indefinitely at first but ended up being 16 games.
With these two suspensions, Green has missed 21 games. To put this into perspective of his comment, Jovic has suited up in 23 games for the Miami Heat this season.
Green has been suspended six times for a total of 25 games. Before this year, he had never been forced to sit for more than one game. His most recent suspenison before this season came in Apr. 2023 when he stomped on Sacramento Kings big man Domantas Sabonis.
Among all of Green's suspensions, one stands out above the rest, when he missed a game during the NBA Finals after he kicked LeBron James in the groin.