NEW ORLEANS — Golden State forward Draymond Green went nearly chest-to-chest with a fan during the Warriors’ game against the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday night.
The fan, who identified himself as Sam Green, 35, of New Orleans, was wearing a black polo shirt with a Pelicans logo on it. He was standing and cheering after Draymond Green had been called for a shooting foul while guarding Pelicans forward Herbert Jones.
While players began taking their positions along the key for Jones’ foul shots, Draymond Green strode over to the grinning fan and stood just inches from him as they spoke to each other, with the fan holding his arms out at his sides.
Game officials quickly stepped between them and pulled Draymond Green away while ushers gathered around and spoke with the fan, who continued to look amused by the exchange.
Sam Green said he was taunting Draymond Green with chants of “Angel Reese,” because several of the Warriors’ star’s early rebounds resulted from his short-range misses, starting with a Golden State possession in which Green missed five straight shots and rebounded the first four.
“He just kept calling me a woman,” Draymond Green told reporters after the game, clarifying later that the fan was calling him “a woman’s name.”
“It was a good joke at first, but you can’t keep calling me a woman. I got four kids, one on the way. You can’t keep calling me a woman.”
Sam Green said Draymond Green shouted profanity at him and threatened to punch him out if he continued the “Angel Reese” taunts (a reference to the WNBA star and former LSU player who set several LSU and SEC rebounding records).
“I wasn’t using profanity, and for him to walk 12 feet off the court to come and get in my face like that, it was a little unnerving,” said Sam Green, who was given a warning by ushers but was allowed to remain in his front-row seat.
“He was talking at first,” Draymond Green said. “Then you get a little closer and he didn’t really say much else. But it’s fine. We move on.”
Warriors coach Steve Kerr said in postgame remarks that he couldn’t comment extensively about the confrontation because he wasn’t sure what was said.
“As long as it doesn’t escalate, it’s fine [for a player] to go over and have a discussion,” Kerr said. “It would have been nice if security had gotten there a little bit earlier.”
Draymond Green, who has been known to draw technical fouls, fines and ejections for his confrontational and emotionally combustible on-court persona, has been fined for fan interaction before.
In 2022, he was fined $25,000 for what the NBA described as “directing obscene language toward a fan.”
He has been critical of fan behavior, saying fans face relatively few consequences for saying inappropriate things and are motivated to do so by the fact that players can be fined for engaging with them.
ESPN’s Anthony Slater contributed to this report.
