Draymond Green spoke on the latest episode of his podcast about his confrontation with a fan in New Orleans that earned him a warning from the NBA.
Green had a verbal altercation with a fan on the sidelines during the second quarter of the Warriors' game in New Orleans on Sunday. In the locker room after the game, Green said the man called him “by a woman's name” but refused to give the name.
In an interview with the Associated Press, the fan identified himself as Sam Green and said he constantly referred to Draymond Green as “Angel Reese,” the WNBA star who became a household name at nearby LSU.
According to ESPN's Shams Charania, Draymond Green was warned but not fined by the NBA on Tuesday.
On his “Draymond Green Show” released on Tuesday, the NBA star shared his perspective on the situation.
Green initially agreed with the fan calling him “Angel Reese” after he grabbed several offensive rebounds and missed several layups on the same possession.
But he said the fan continued to call him that the rest of the game and added what he called “filler” of profanities to the comments.
“To use Angel Reese's name as a negative connotation, I really don't like that for the young queen because she did what she did to become the person that she is,” Green said on his show. “As a man with four kids and about to turn five, when you start adding the different fillers to your Angel Reese, it’s just disrespectful to me.”
The fan's continued verbal taunts were enough to cause Draymond Green to walk toward him with 2:02 left in the second quarter, getting within a few feet but not making physical contact with the fan.
“'Hey man, relax. Watch yourself now, you're getting really disrespectful,'” Draymond Green told the fan. “You keep doing the same thing and adding these little fillers. You're not saying the things you said before. I'm not going to keep being any woman.”
Senior official Courtney Kirkland then intervened. The fan was allowed to remain in his seat for the remainder of the game.
Courtney came to me and said, “Draymond, I’ve heard it over and over again.” “You said what you had to say to him, now let me do it,” Draymond Green said. “Courtney handled it and had no problems with the guy for the rest of the game.”