In A Huge Turn Of Events, The NBA Actually Did The Right Thing By Suspending Draymond Green

How is this not a technical foul and immediate ejection? Unbelievable cheap shot! #DraymondGreen pic.twitter.com/zc5DcxY4oM

— Jon Sanderson (@CampSanderson) June 11, 2016

Warriors star Draymond Green suspended for Game 5. https://t.co/o53hePkzKs pic.twitter.com/lFaHO5uFPI

— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) June 12, 2016

I suppose I should have given the NBA the opportunity to make the right decision before I wrote a post criticizing their failure to make the right decision. In fairness to me, as of yesterday there was no such chatter that the right decision was even on the table, and they certainly haven't given the bi-partisan basketball fan any reason to believe they had the ability to choose it with their playoff pattern of making the wrong decision. Either way my point remains consistent that - like I have said ad nauseam for the entirety of this paragraph - suspending Draymond Green was the right decision. 

Was it made for the most honorably of reasons? Absolutely not. Was it financially influenced? Of course. The NBA is big business. They are always going to do what's best for their bottomline, and increasing the odds that this series makes it out of Golden State again is huge for the prestige of what has been an oft-pukeworthy postseason. Hell, I am actually proud of Adam Silver. He is clearly learning from the past mistakes of both his and David Stern's tenure. Even though Draymond Green's punishment is nothing more than the manipulation of odds in an uninteresting NBA Finals, it's a manipulation of odds that can easily be sold as an act of justice. 

Any reasonable sports fan should know that these multi-billion dollar associations didn't build their estates upon the ethical high ground. What we should expect them to be able to do is veil their deception with acceptable justifications. Putting the player that has been running around treating half court offenses like the most morally compromising of swinging door saloon brawls in timeout is what I consider an acceptable justification. The fact that he has managed to remain one flagrant short of a suspension for this long is nothing short of comedic. If you want to criticize the NBA for needing this decision to benefit them before they made it then feel free, but don't act like the guy whose extremities have had a seemingly magnetic attraction to the genitalia of others is facing wrongful persecution. This is a win-win situation, even if the fans feel like they are losing when the league treats them as situationally blind, unintelligible buffoons.