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Draymond Green Grabs And Shoves Patty Mills In Latest Dirty Play
Credit: Petre Thomas-USA TODAY Sports

Draymond Green has come under heaps of criticism this season, as his aggressive tendencies on the court have stopped going unpunished. Regardless, the man with two discipline-related suspensions this season continues pushing his luck, as seen by this unnecessarily dirty play on Heat guard Patty Mills, where he grabbed and tossed the Australian guard to the ground.

Draymond Green is incapable of keeping himself away from physical confrontation on the NBA court, there's no other plausible reason behind why his behavior has been unchanged. He served suspensions for his attacks on Rudy Gobert and Jusuf Nurkic, but he is still willing to stretch the rules as far as he can to continue playing his physical brand of basketball.

Green also was front-and-center in a confrontation against the Grizzlies last week, playing overly physical defense on Santi Aldama which led to a team-wide scuffle that saw Desmond Bane get involved and Taylor Jenkins falling to the ground while trying to mediate the situation.

Whether this was intentional or not, but this incident with Patty Mills further reinforces rumors of Green playing like this against foreign players only, with Gobert, Nurkic, and Aldama previously also being non-American players.

Draymond Green Is Coping With His Regression In Talent

Just a few seasons ago, Draymond Green was arguably the most versatile defender in the NBA along with Kawhi Leonard. Green was a proficient defender on all five positions on the court, with this versatility making him the primary stopper for the Warriors dynasty. While he's still the best defender in Golden State, he's nowhere close to being a DPOY contender.

As his skills have slowly diminished, his temper has gotten noticeably worse. Green was always instigating opponents and getting physical with them, but nowadays it happens from frustration or desperation. 

Green has spoken about how he has temper flare-ups on the court and then doesn't remember what happened afterward. He's even joked about having an alter ego, so it's clear Green is aware of his unnecessarily aggressive behavior on the court at times.

Draymond is averaging 8.9 points, 7.3 rebounds, and 6.0 assists this season as the Warriors sit in danger of missing the Play-In tournament. They're picking up a win over the Miami Heat tonight and Green will likely not face consequences for making the play he did on Patty Mills. 

Suppose an incident like this was to happen in the playoffs, as it did last year when Green stomped on Domantas Sabonis' chest. In that case, the league will need to step in and put a harsher penalty on Draymond whose pattern of attacking players seems to not be breaking even with the adverse effects the Warriors have had to go through. Steve Kerr can't talk him out of this, so the league has to do something.

This article first appeared on Fadeaway World and was syndicated with permission.

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