Draymond Green suggests NBA fines harm players' ability to accumulate retirement wealth: 'Not set up for us'
Draymond Green has made a lot of money during his career, but he seems unsatisfied with the financial opportunities in the NBA, arguing fines work against building wealth.
Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green is one of the most outspoken players in the NBA.
He was a key member of the Warriors dynasty, but he's also been involved in multiple on-court disputes with referees or other players.
Many of those incidents have led to suspensions and fines, and the 34-year-old has accumulated roughly $900,000 in fines in his NBA career, according to data from Spotrac.
The four-time NBA champion also lost millions in salary as he served multiple suspensions without pay.
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In December, Green was suspended indefinitely after he was involved in an on-court altercation with Phoenix Suns center Jusuf Nurkic. He was reinstated in January and lost just shy of $2 million in wages while serving the suspension, according to ESPN.
While the amount of money Green has lost due to fines and suspensions is a fraction of his career earnings, he recently argued the punishments can hurt an NBA player's ability to accumulate enough wealth for retirement.
"The fines to me don’t make sense," Green said on an episode of Shaquille O'Neal's "The Big Podcast with Shaq."
When you talk about as hard as we work to accumulate wealth, coming from situations that most people never make it out, and then you get fined the way we get fined, it’s actually not set up for us to be wealthy after we’re done playing," Green said.
"This job is not set up, the way we’re taxed, the way we’re fined. … If I do something wrong, I lose $100,000. It took my mom four years when I was growing up to make $100,000. And I lose that in a night because what? The referee got mad at me, and he didn’t like what I said to him. So, I lose $5,000 like that? Like, on a tech?"
Green inked a four-year contract extension with the Warriors in late June. He was named the NBA's Defensive Player of the Year in 2017.
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