Draymond Green’s suspension loses all credibility as the NBA refuses to issue the same sentence to Dillon Brooks

If the NBA wanted the precedent it set by suspending Draymond Green to maintain any shred of credibility, the Memphis Grizzlies would have played Monday night in Game 4 of their first-round series against the Lakers sans Dillon Brooks. However, the The NBA reportedly chose not to punish Brooks additionally after being ejected from Lakers-Grizzlies Game 3 on Saturday night.

Brooks was thrown at LeBron James for a flagrant-2 groin shot. A flagrant-2 doesn’t automatically equate to a one-game suspension, but when the league openly announced that Green’s punishment was “based in part on Green’s history of unsportsmanlike conduct,” it set a precedent for known dirty players to be punished differently, even for similar or even identical actions than those with a better reputation.

Brooks’ reputation is anything but clean. He is widely regarded as a dirty, antagonistic player; basically Draymond Green, just not as well. And the numbers back it up. Brooks led the league with 18 technical fouls that season. His two flagrants might not sound like much, but nobody in the league has had more than three.

Brooks had mocked LeBron in all series prior to Game 3 in the media. But the league has apparently taken all this into account and still hasn’t suspended Brooks. The green suspension I have argued was an overreactionlooks even less like a reasonable judgment now.

Brooks’ act itself, just like Green stepping on Domantas Sabonis’ chest after Sabonis wrapped his ankle and he lost his balance, probably wasn’t worth a throw. One could argue that he was after the ball when LeBron crossed behind his back, but one could also argue that Brook’s backhand lead isn’t exactly a natural way to attempt a steal.

Either way, the league should have brought Brooks’ story into that decision. The Greens’ suspension should have been too recent not to stray on the side of upholding their precedent.

To add more context to this situation, both James Harden and Joel Embiid were recently flagrantated for firing groin shots. Embiids came in Game 3 and was undoubtedly the most egregious of them all – a full kick from the ground up with absolutely no claim to making a legitimate basketball game, which is one of the factors meant to inform flagrant judgments.

Embiid wasn’t even given a blatant 2 for it. Just a flagrante-1 that doesn’t result in an ejection. That was a ridiculous verdict. Nothing remotely resembled a basketball game in this action. In fact, consistency is not a forte of NBA office or subsequent punishment. There’s no sane world where Embiid doesn’t get kicked out for it, but Harden is for it…

Still, Harden was ejected, and it largely reflects Brooks’ offense. You can look at this game and say that Harden put a little more precision and pop on that elbow, but it’s at least arguable that he simply pulled a forward basketball pull from a confined space, just as it’s at least arguable that Brooks made a play on the ball with LeBron and Green regained his balance after Sabonis grabbed his foot.

Harden, despite being issued a Flagrant-2, was not suspended for Game 4. The reason for this, of course, would be that he has no history of these types of incidents. But Brooks does.

And that’s the precedent the league seems to have set with its decision to go green – that the very same act can be judged differently for different players with different histories. Harden got a passport. not green. And by that standard, Brooks shouldn’t have skated without suspension either.

But now the NBA is looking even more stupid after the green suspension.