> But focusing heavily on TMZ’s ability to so quickly obtain and publish the footage of Green’s punch is unavoidable here. That’s not because we’re trying to obscure the severity of Green’s egregious behavior. It’s because actually seeing the footage is what makes this situation so different from every single NBA practice scrap before it.
> I took some grief Friday for tweeting that a practice-floor punch had been landed in the NBA at least a hundred times before. I certainly could have written the sentence with more sensitivity and less hyperbole, because the intent wasn’t to normalize such over-the-line behavior. Yet the larger point stands. I was merely trying to spotlight the uncharted territory that the TMZ video has hauled the Warriors into.
> Altercations in NBA practices might not happen as frequently as they used to, but my checking with various coaches and players around the league in the past few days certainly supported the sentiment that they still happen far more often than we usually end up hearing on the outside.
> The details, in many cases, tend to be kept quiet.
[Source (Paywall)](https://marcstein.substack.com/p/what-a-difference-four-months-makes)
36 comments
Do players throw knockout punches at other teammates frequently?
Steven Adams: Tell Draymond. I want him to know it was me.
These practice brawls sound more entertaining than regular season basketball, let’s see them.
But how many of those hundred punches were also thrown by Draymond?
I just don’t think they are frequently sucker punches by a “team-leader” vet who is significantly larger than the young star-in-the-making he punches.
We all know players will have Arguments and might even push and get held back. I don’t think it’s many vets throwing super man punches at younger players tho
Podmond really be doing damage control now
No matter how many times this gets said, this sub will still just dismiss it lmao
We’ve heard from a number of players both inside and outside basketball that this sort of encounter happens very rarely if at all. Altercations and scuffles happen plenty, we know that, but not shit like this.
These fools are just mad the tape got leaked because now all of their other nonsense is at threat of being leaked by a random employee.
Like what Dame publicly said on this was straight up nonsense.
Gonna get downvoted but I can tell this subreddit has more fans than actual ball players. If it wasn’t the case people would know this is common in a competitive basketball environment.
Hell I played pickup last week and some kid slapped the shit out of another one. It got broken up and we all continued to play. Another time a dude straight up brandished a knife when he disagreed with a foul call.
It’s almost unexplainable, it’s just a certain ego driven attitude that comes along with playing basketball especially with brothas, and we accept it for what it is.
I’m black btw.
bro i don’t understand how context doesn’t matter. for the ppl saying its not a big deal, would it be different if it was draymond punching steph? or russ punching pat bev? who punching who and what the context of that punch was matters, and draymond is a 10 year vet and is the “leader” of the team punching someone 10 years younger than him at full power when he wasn’t expecting it. not only that but this isn’t the first time draymond’s behavior has been an issue; he may have cost them the 2016 finals, may have cost them kd
At this point I’m offended that these people think fans don’t know fights happen. No shit they do. This was assault. Fuck off.
people in here don’t understand it because you don’t get that same team dynamic at a Wendy’s
I think there’s room for both “fights and altercations happen all the time in practice” and “sucker punches that knock a player out aren’t common” to both be true
“The NBA should be allowed to deal w/ this pattern of illegal behavior internally and absent of public scrutiny.”
-The Catholic Church
I’m sure this isn’t going to go well but I just have to say it…
Responses to this reeeally shows the demographic of this sub. Calling this a “suckered punch” and an “assault” and all that, just shows you didn’t grow up fighting, or even seeing fights for that matter.
This is NOT a sucker punch. They were obviously talking back and forth. Draymond walked up to him. Poole PUSHED him. The moment you push somebody it means I’m ready for the smoke. Now Poole might not have thought Dray would actually swing. But Poole initiated the fight by being physical first. And underestimated the situation.
Now I am NOT condoning what Dray did. It was reckless and he should be suspended imo or maybe even worse. I’m just annoyed at the sucker punch narrative.
This is me pushing, and therefore ready for the smoke 😂😂
When I think of frequent “fights” in practice, I just assume they look a lot like the KAT- Embiid kerfuffle from a few years back, where it builds over time, both parties have time to “square up” and culminates in some unfocused swings and quasi-wrestling.
Green got in Poole’s face, who shoved him in a pretty standard get-outta-my-face way, then Green immediately went to haymaker while Poole had his hands down. That’s not a “fight” that’s damn near assault.
Again, I’m not in NBA locker rooms so I’m open to being wrong, but I just have such a hard time imagining what Draymond did is commonplace. NBA players are fucking specimens, the average NBA player is probably 6’6” 215 and a top 1% athlete in the world. if there were tons of incidents identical to what Draymond did, someone’s getting concussed, a broken nose, a broken jaw, something that would draw questions. And the only one that’s close is Portis which was years ago and drew tons of attention.
Not to be that guy, but if this those happen more often than not, one, that’s not good, two, it’s kind of hard to believe that people start throwing punches in practice.
Like sure I something can be said about oh if it was any other player it wouldnt be a big deal but like we will never know because we never hear about it
How are half of league sources saying this happens all the time and the other half are saying they’ve never seen something like that
This is not that serious to keep talking about it.
It’s almost like nobody in the NBA cares other than the fans who are making it such a big deal? Is it wrong? Fuck yea it is but people keep posting like their shocked that the NBA doesn’t think it’s a big deal and that it happens all the time. The punch was shocking, the way the NBA handled it is not
Here’s something I can guarantee…
99.99999% of those altercations do not end with one of the players getting absolutely JAWED
Even rec league, with essentially nothing on the line, I’m constantly deescalating dweebs. Bball is weirdly fighty.
No one has asked this question.
Say this incident happens in game, where Dray is talking shit and opponent is giving it back to Dray.
Then Dray pulls same move on that other player.
How many games does Dray get suspended?
5 games?
10 games?
Then remember Dray did this to a teammate, that’s why people are upset by it.
I’m not even Warriors fans or Warriors hater and I’m ashamed of Dray’s actions.
And if that punch ended Poole’s career? Who would be liable for Poole’s lost income?
Would the team take responsibility for excusing the behavior or would they hang it on Green?
I would like to hear out of the 100 or so in practice fights, how many of them involved sucker punches? Also, how many fights has Draymond been in during practices?
These players spend more time with each other than they do their own families. I agree with Kerr that things should be handled inside and not the opinion of people who have no relation to the organization (redditors and outsiders).
If you people truly hate punches and violence, how about stopping blatant fights in hockey for example. At least nba players lose money and playing time and a potential career. Hockey players get 5 mins in a time out box.
Nobody is talking about how bad it is for basketball, to normalize this behavior. Middle schoolers, high schoolers and idiots at the park are going to think this is cool behavior.
Even if it is normal in the NBA, it shouldn’t be. Basketball is for families. The league needs to set a better example. WTF are we doing here worrying about leaks and saying this stuff happens all the time?
People in the league are saying it happens more than we hear about it and yall are in the thread telling them they’re wrong lol
ITT we have extremely toxic people apologizing for the bully, and people who understand interpersonal violence is not in fact normal nor acceptable. The apologizers also think they are real ballers, that the rest of us never got in fights, never played any team sport, were never around MEN.
Because, apparently, REAL men get violent instantly and attack people who are in no way showing they are interested in throwing down.
I cannot truly comprehend being so insecure in my manhood that I would think any of that makes sense.
I don’t doubt that altercations happen all the time but the typical basketball altercation is when tempers flare and you get a little handsy. There’s a reason why these dudes are saying “altercation” because they know what it is. A guy shoves another guy. Maybe a hard elbow. Maybe some shouting. Altercation, by definition, means
> a noisy argument or disagreement, especially in public.
What we witnessed was a sucker punch. One of the team’s captain’s got hot, got in the face of a young guy, forced a shove out of him, then **immediately** punched him.
An altercation is what happened between those 2 before that day and all of those bad feelings should’ve stayed in the past. The clip showed what happens when you go 1 step above an altercation
Now I want a reporter to talk about how often players are in situations 1 step above an altercation. I’m willing to bet a lot of money that those situations don’t happen often
They say this, and it’s definitely true, but Shams broke this story *before* the video leak even came out. Implying that this was something worse than usual.
“Guys guys guys, the Warriors don’t have a problem with workplace violence, the entire league does.”
We all know theres fights, weve all watched sports long enough to know. Dray sucker punched him like a bitch. That shit ain’t supposed to happen. Theres a reason Looney said its gonna take a while to gain back trust. Would be different if Poole was throwin too
Idk how people are saying Jokic push on Morris was a sucker move because it was towards the back,but Dray does it face to face after being shoved first an it’s still a sucker move ??
NBA practice gym: A workplace where you are allowed to punch a co-worker without much repercussion unless there is a TMZ video of it.