Warriors' Draymond Green issues reaching critical point

Green tied his career high with his third ejection of the season, and it's only December. He's played in just 15 games, and he's been kicked out of three of them. Projected over an 82-game season, that's a stunning 16.4 ejections.

Of course, he won't come close to playing a full season because of his suspensions. Green's second ejection of the year turned into a five-game absence after the NBA gave him a suspension for choking and dragging Minnesota's Rudy Gobert down the court. He's got an indefinite suspension after the Jusuf Nurkic play.

As a result of all the ejections, Green is only averaging 25.1 minutes and 5.5 rebounds per game, both the lowest since the 2013-14 season, when he wasn't yet a starter. He's also committing 4.3 fouls per 36 minutes, easily his highest rate of fouling since 2013-14 as well.

The odd thing is it's not like his basketball performance is slipping much. He's shooting well, and despite a lot of turnovers, he's keeping roughly his usual assist-to-turnover ratio. Rather, Green simply can't help himself from taking cheap shots. The Gobert choke was excessive and violent but at least slightly justifiable since he was breaking up a fight. 

The Nurkic flagrant foul was Green hitting the Phoenix Suns center for no apparent reason.

It seems like Green simply can't manage his emotions anymore. Beyond this season, he sucker-punched teammate Jordan Poole in training camp in 2022 and got an ejection and suspension for stomping on Domantas Sabonis' chest during the playoffs last year.

The Warriors are stuck because they gave Green a four-year, $100 million contract this summer, even after all his shenanigans. There's no real replacement for him on the roster or, really, in the entire league, but they also can't go forward when Green is getting kicked out of games all the time. They're 7-5 when Green plays a full game and 5-8 when he doesn't.

A trade isn't feasible, so the only solution might be keeping him away from the team until he undergoes anger management or some other kind of therapy. The Warriors have always tolerated Green's outbursts because his play was so valuable, but the blowups and the violence are getting so bad that he's not even allowed to play. If the Warriors are going to salvage their season, the change needs to happen with Green himself.