“I was horrified. I just remember, like, shaking, thinking I was gonna give birth,” said Shashana Rosen, Domantas Sabonis’ wife, in the aftermath of her husband’s viral on-court incident with Draymond Green. The Golden State Warriors star has, in the past, gotten physical with other players in the spirit of competitiveness, with incidents ranging from him punching rival LeBron James to even his teammate Jordan Poole. However, things went a different way when Green “took a hard step” on Sabonis’ chest, a move that ultimately led to him being suspended for 1 game. Now, 2 years after the incident, Green touches base on the same.

The Golden State Warriors’ power forward was the guest on one of renowned streamer Kai Cenat’s recent livestreams. During the same, the 23-year-old replayed the viral incident from April 2023, where Sabonis slipped and fell in the paint, grabbed Green’s right leg, and the latter took the hard step after initially shaking off Sabonis’ grip.

Green repeated “You gotta get him back” as the video ran. As Cenat asked for an explanation, the player defended himself by saying, “Why is he holding on to my ankle?” As Cenat replayed, Green kept pointing at the moment the Sacramento Kings player had a hold of him. As the streamer finally got a good look, the NBA star added that “That’s crazy. They don’t want you to see that part. See, what they want you to…. they don’t want you to see that”.

Kai Cenat wasn’t done with showing just that one incident. He also went back a little bit more in time, to Game 4 of the 2016 NBA Finals. Draymond Green and LeBron James, who was playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers back then, reportedly got tangled up at half-court.

LeBron tried to step over Green to get back into the play, and Green’s arm ended up going up to LeBron’s groin area. The incident resulted in Green’s 4th flagrant foul point of the postseason, and triggered an automatic suspension for Game 5. As CBS Sports reporter Colin-Ward Henninger said, that altercation has “been nightmarishly replayed in the heads of Golden State Warriors fans for years”.

Once again, Green explained, saying that “If you fall down, and you’re getting up, and I put my leg on top of your shoulder, what are you gonna do?” He admitted that he doesn’t regret what he did, adding that “I wouldn’t want my son thinking that if someone did that to him it’s okay”.

Despite Draymond Green having an explanation for the actions he took against Domantas Sabonis, officials only hit the latter with a technical foul for grabbing Green’s leg. Green was given a Flagrant 2 and ejected. In the end, it did not matter, as the Warriors still managed to beat Sabonis’ Sacramento Kings in seven games during the first-round playoff series. As a renowned NBA official would later reveal, the league could have looked the other way had it not been for the power forward’s reputation.

Joe Dumars Reveals Decision To Give Draymond Green Flagrant Foul Was “Difficult”

As NBA journalist Timothy Rapp stated in his recent report, the NBA “wasn’t interested in Green’s explanation at the time”, and the “cartoonishly blatant way he stomped on Sabonis” did not help make a case for him. Despite that, Joe Dumars, former NBA player and the then NBA executive vice president, was sympathetic. “This was not some snap-of-the-finger decision to do this,” said Dumars in an interview with The Associated Press. “There was much discussion, and back and forth, looking at the play itself over and over. And then ultimately we came to the decision that the act itself, and repeat offenses, actually did warrant a suspension.”

Grabbing LeBron James’ groin was just one non-sportsmanship like incident that Green had participated in leading up to the Domantas Sabonis one. He once hit then Clippers player Blake Griffin in the face with his elbow, argued with his then teammate Kevin Durant, etc. He didn’t stop even after the Sabonis incident since, as of May 2025, Green has accumulated more than 200 technical fouls, and has been suspended six times. For Dumars, however, what Green had done till that point gave him the foundation to take what he considered reasonable action.

“It wasn’t like it went completely unpunished,” Dumars said about Domantas Sabonis. “We didn’t think it rose to the level of Draymond’s play — excessive, over-the-top, dangerous, repeat offender. That’s the separation between what he did and what Draymond did.”

Do you feel that the punishment given to Draymond Green was justified? Did Domantas Sabonis also deserve a more severe punishment? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section down below.