Golden State Warriors veteran Draymond Green made a special guest appearance on Inside The NBA on Friday night, and made some eyebrow raising comments about Suns star Devin Booker that could potentially result in punishment for tampering.
Booker has been sensational for the Suns in the bubble, averaging 28 points per game to lead the Suns to a perfect 4-0 record in Orlando. Phoenix didn’t have much of a shot of making a playoff push when the season resumed, but are now 2.5 games back of No. 8 Memphis.
On Friday night, Green said that Booker has to leave Phoenix and play on a team that can win consistently.
“It’s great to see Book playing well and Phoenix playing well, but get my man out of Phoenix. It’s not good for him, it’s not good for his career. Sorry Chuck, but they got to get Book out of Phoenix. I need my man to go somewhere where he can play great basketball all the time and win, because he’s that type of player.”
Ernie Johnson then asked Green if he was tampering, and Green said “maybe.”
In the superteam era, it’s obvious that players collude to determine their future teams – but that stuff typically happens behind the scenes, and players don’t openly discuss movement on national TV. The NBA has to this point only punished teams for tampering with players, but LeBron James caused a major debate on tampering rules in 2019 when he expressed admiration for then-Pelicans star Anthony Davis. The league passed stricter tampering rules ahead of the 2019-20 season, and NBA Twitter seems to believe that commissioner Adam Silver may make an example of Green.
