Draymond Green was ejected during the third quarter of the Golden State Warriors‘ 116-119 loss to the Phoenix Suns on Tuesday night for striking Jusuf Nurkic on the face. The incident put Green in the eye of the storm, but Nurkic says he doesn’t have any hard feelings anyway.
“I have a lot of respect for him, obviously, even before this,” Nurkic said, via Duane Rankin of Arizona Republic. “I still have it. I don’t know what people go through. It’s not our problem, but he’s an NBA champion for me, Hall of Famer still.”
Green has been indefinitely suspended by the NBA , with the league claiming a “repeated history of unsportsmanlike acts” led them to make this decision. Nurkic, however, doesn’t celebrate any punishment against the Warriors star.
“It’s kind of sad to see people going in a bad direction,” Nurkic said. “I want him to succeed and still be the Draymond we all know. I have no bad feelings or any hate towards him.”
Draymond Green apologized after the game
The clip of Green swinging and hitting Nurkic on the face immediately went viral, as it looked like the Warriors big man was ruthless on his opponent. However, he apologized for the situation, claiming it wasn’t his intention to hit Nurkic.
“I thought he was pulling my hip and I was swinging a way to sell the call, and [I] made contact with him,” Green said, via NBC Sports. “As you know I’m not one to apologize for things I meant to do, but I do apologize to Jusuf [Nurkic] because I didn’t intend to hit him. I sell calls with my arms. I don’t fall to sell a call; I’m not a flopper. So I was just selling the call because he was grabbing me and pulling my hip back. So I spun away and unfortunately, I hit him.”
Since Green was ejected in the third quarter with a Flagrant 2 foul, he had enough time to review the action before addressing the media. Even after watching the replay, Green insisted he had no intention to hit the Suns center on the face.
“If I go look at every replay of everything, a replay is never going to look good,” Green said. “But I know my intentions and my intentions were to sell the call. I also don’t think I’m an accurate enough puncher to do a full 360 and connect with someone. So it’s unfortunate.”
Nurkic was more angry at Green in his initial reaction
Nurkic already let it go by Wednesday, but he did look quite angry at Green when talking to the media on Tuesday night.
“What’s going on with him? I don’t know,” Nurkic said after the game. “That brother needs help. I’m glad he didn’t try and choke me. But at the same time, it had nothing to do with basketball. I’m just out there trying to play basketball and they’re out there swinging. I think we saw that often. I hope whatever he got in his life, it gets better.“
Green had already received a five-game suspension earlier in the season for putting Timberwolves center Rudy Gobert in a chokehold, adding to his history of altercations. Last year, he stomped on Domanta Sabonis’ chest. Months before that, Green punched Jordan Poole in the Warriors’ training camp.