The difficult moment of Draymond Green that made him think about retiring from the NBA: “It was too much for me”

The return of Draymond Green to the NBA courts is a matter of hours. The power forward of Golden State Warriors will play again after a 12-game suspension and almost a month that, as the player revealed, was about to end his professional career in the NBA.

In the latest episode of his podcast The Draymond Green Showpublished on Monday, the four-time champion with the Warriors recounted a conversation he had had with Adam Silver, commissioner of the NBA, after the league suspended him indefinitely. after being expelled from a game against the Phoenix Sunson December 12, for hitting Bosnian center Jusuf Nurkic.

“I told: ‘Adam, this is too much for me. This is too much. It’s all getting too much for me and I’m quitting.’. And Adam told me: ‘You are making a very hasty decision and I will not let you do it.”, revealed the 33-year-old player, trained at Michigan State University and with 11 seasons of experience in the most competitive basketball league on the planet.

Green claimed that he had “a long and excellent conversation” with Silver, who had turned out “very useful” for him and that had helped him reconsider his idea of ​​leaving high-performance sports. “I am very grateful to play in a league with a commissioner like him, who cares more about helping you than harming you or punishing you. It’s more about the players.”the basketball player reflected.

Although he apologized to Nurkic after his expulsion in the game against the Suns (the second he suffered this season and the 18th in his career) and argued that he had not intended to hit his opponent, Green had to attend, at the direction of NBA authorities, counseling sessions to control his anger attacks.. Although the league lifted his suspension last Saturday, the power forward continues to participate in those sessions.

“During the period of his suspension, which began on December 13 and caused him to miss 12 games, Green completed steps that demonstrated his commitment to adjust his behavior to the standards expected of NBA players”said Joe Dumars, the league’s executive vice president in charge of basketball operations.

The Golden State inmate assured that these weeks had been painful and explained what impact this situation had had not only on him, but on his family. “I have a wife, I have children, I have parents, I have grandparents, siblings, friends that I embarrassed and it hurts me. My mother suffered death threats. “I have two children who are of school age and have to go to school.”he detailed.

Green rejoined his team’s training on Sunday and It is expected that he could play again on Wednesday, when the Warriors host the New Orleans Pelicans at the Chase Center in San Francisco. His return could be very useful for a team that is having a very weak campaign: it is 12th in the Western Conference with a meager record of 17 wins and 19 losses.

Although Golden State missed one of its figures, coach Steve Kerr did not dwell on the damage caused by Green’s absence in these 12 games, but rather preferred to emphasize the importance of the counseling sessions in which the player participated during his suspension.

“This wasn’t a sprained ankle, it wasn’t a sprained knee. This is a topic Draymond is trying to get help with. So space was important to him and to us,” Kerr highlighted last week.