Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green is no stranger to controversy and violence in the NBA. He punched teammate Jordan Poole in 2022, which forced Poole to leave the Warriors. The following year, he put Rudy Gobert in a chokehold and then struck Jusuf Nurkic on the side of the head one month later, leading to an indefinite suspension.
But long before Dray went on that mean mugging streak in the league in 2023, he was already putting his hands on people. In 2016, while returning to his hometown in 2016, he was arrested after slapping Michigan State football player Jermaine Edmondson outside a bar on Abbott Road in the city’s busy downtown.
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“I was talking to one of my teammates when Draymond bumped into me, and I said, ‘Hey, bro, can you at least say excuse me?'” Edmondson said in a statement to the East Lansing Police Department about the incident on Friday night. “I asked who he was to think that it’s okay to bump into somebody without saying excuse me. He then said, ‘I pay for n— as like you scholarships.’
Witnesses said Green slapped Edmondson, not punched
According to Edmondson, two men from Green’s entourage ended up choking him that day. The next night, Jermaine said he, his girlfriend, and some friends went out to party at Conrad’s because it was his birthday. However, they saw Draymond talking to his roommate there, and that’s when he decided to confront the NBA star and tell him, “Last night was not cool.” It was at this moment that Green then allegedly lost his cool.
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“As he responded to me, he began to poke me on my shoulder, and I tell him that he doesn’t need to put his hands on me, we can just talk,” Edmondson added. “As I started to talk again, boom, I’m punched in the jaw, in front of all my friends and peers.”
That part of Edmondson’s story, though, was disputed, as several police officers said they saw the taller man “open-handedly slap” the shorter guy. Also, Denver Broncos wide receiver and MSU alum Benny Fowler, who was at the bar when the incident happened, said Green never threw a punch.
Still, the Warriors forward was booked for misdemeanor assault charges and was detained at the city jail for 3.5 hours because his blood alcohol content was 0.10 percent, which is over the legal limit of 0.08 percent for a person not to be considered legally intoxicated. He was released on a $200 bail. But that’s not the end of the story.
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Edmondson got booted out of the MSU football team the following week
While Green’s lawyer settled the legal matter, Edmondson was released from the Spartans’ football team the following week. While then-MSU football coach Mark Dantonio said it was Edmondson who asked for his release because he wanted more opportunities in his final year, many felt his exit had something to do with his altercation with MSU’s largest athletic donor at the time.
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It can be recalled that after Draymond signed an $82 million contract extension following the Warriors’ 2015 NBA title conquest, he pledged $3.1 million to MSU’s academics and athletics and said he was more than happy to give back money to his alma mater.
“I just felt it was important to me to give back to the university, [to] help the university in any way I possibly can,” Green told ESPN’s TrueHoop TV podcast. “This is something that I’m ecstatic about… “I never thought I’d be in this position to give anybody $3 million. I’ve never been so excited in my life to give money away.”
Kudos to Green for never forgetting where he came from. You can just imagine how many students received a scholarship with that amount of donation. However, perhaps Dray didn’t have to tell Edmondson about it. It was such an unnecessary show-off on his part.
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This story was originally published by Basketball Network on May 17, 2026, where it first appeared in the Off The Court section. Add Basketball Network as a Preferred Source by clicking here.