NEW ORLEANS (AP) — Golden State forward Draymond Green went nearly chest-to-chest with a fan during the Warriors' 124-106 road victory over the New Orleans Pelicans on Sunday night.
“He just kept calling me a woman. It was a good joke at first but you can't keep calling me a woman,” Green said, clarifying later that the fan was calling him “a woman's name.”
“I got four kids and one on the way," Green added. "Just don't be disrespectful.”
The fan, who identified himself as Sam Green, 35, of New Orleans, was wearing a black polo 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 Herb 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 one another, with the fan holding his arms out on each side.
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.
Draymond Green said game official Courtney Kirkland told him, “I got it. I've heard him over and over and over again. You've handled it well. Don't get yourself in no trouble. I'll take care of it. Courtney was great.”
Sam Green said he was heckling 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. Draymond Green finished with eight points and 10 rebounds.
Sam Green said the NBA star shouted profanity at him and threatened to punch him out if he continued the “Angel Reese” taunts (a refence to the WNBA and former LSU star 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.
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.”
Green has been critical of fan behavior, saying fans face relatively few consequences for saying inappropriate things, and are in fact motivated to do so by the fact that players can be fined for engaging with them.
Green said Sunday night that he is accustomed to heckling at road games and that it generally doesn't bother him.
“I love disrespect on the road because we win a lot,” Green said. “Quieting a home crowd is always fun.”
Although the Pelicans have won just two of their first 13 games and fired coach Willie Green on Saturday, Green said he was surprised to see such a small crowd for a game in which Stephen Curry was playing. Announced attendance was 18,373, close to capacity, but many seats remained empty.
“The Steph Curry show; it usually travels,” Green said. “Man, this place; it's tough in here.”
“You want to go into full arenas (which) also helps the entire league out,” Green said. “So, you might need to take a look. It's interesting.”
AP NBA: https://www.apnews.com/hub/NBA
New Orleans Pelicans center Derik Queen (22) and guard Jeremiah Fears (0) strip the ball from Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (23) as he goes to the basket during the first quarter of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)
Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green reacts after a basket against the New Orleans Pelicans during the third quarter of an NBA basketball game, Sunday, Nov. 16, 2025, in New Orleans. (AP Photo/Butch Dill)
ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) — Yankees general manager Brian Cashman says Sonny Gray admitted he expressed a desire to play in New York at the behest of his agent so as not to harm his free-agency value and didn't voice his dislike of the Big Apple until after the 2018 trade deadline had passed.
Gray was acquired by Boston in a trade from St. Louis last month and spoke of his 1 1/2 seasons in New York during a Zoom news conference on Dec. 2.
“New York was, it just wasn’t a good situation for me, wasn’t a great setup for me and my family,” he said. “I never wanted to go there in the first place.”
His agent denied Cashman's allegations in an email to The Associated Press.
Gray was traded from Oakland to the Yankees in July 2017 and went 15-16 with a 4.52 ERA with New York. He was dropped from the rotation in August 2018 after he smirked when fans booed as he walked off the Yankee Stadium mound in the third inning of a 7-5 loss to Baltimore. He was dealt to Cincinnati in January 2019.
“After the deadline was over, he asked to meet with me. He said, 'Hey, can we talk?'” Cashman said Sunday night after arriving at the winter meetings.
Cashman recalled meeting with Gray in the clubhouse office of Chad Bohling, the Yankees' senior director of organizational performance.
“He said, 'I thought you were going to trade me,'” Cashman said. “I was like, publicly I’m out trying to get pitching, starting pitching and bullpen. Why would I trade a starter when we need pitching badly? ... And he goes, ‘Well I got to tell you, I’ve never wanted to —' that’s when he told me he never wanted to be here. He hates New York. This is the worst place. He just sits in his hotel room."
“I said, Well it’s a little late now,” Cashman recalled. “So then I told him, I said, but you said you wanted to be traded here. And he said, 'My agent, Bo McKinnis, told me to do that. He told me to lie. It wouldn’t be good for my free agency to say there are certain places that I don't want to go to.'”
“And I told him: Nothing I can do about it now. I wish you’d told me well beforehand. I wish we knew this before we even tried to acquire you that you never wanted to come here," Cashman said. "We tried to do our homework. … And I said so now we’ll just have to play the year out and this winter I’ll do whatever I can to move you and we moved him to the Reds.”
Cashman said the Yankees had a minor league video coordinator who had been roommates of Gray at Vanderbilt and that Gray had mentioned to his former roommate: "Tell Cash, get me over to the Yankees. Blah, blah, blah. Like I want out of Oakland. I want to win a world championship. Blah, blah, blah. So, and it wasn’t just him. He was communicating that to a number of different people that was getting to us, that he wants to be a Yankee."
McKinnis refuted Cashman's comments.
“So Brian is trying to make people believe I told Sonny to, in Cashman’s words, `lie' to the minor league video guy to try to get Sonny to the Yankees, even though, per Cashman, Sonny did not want to be with the Yankees, to subsequently somehow help Sonny’s free agency,” McKinnis wrote in an email to the AP.
“This makes zero sense,” McKinnis added. “If any player does not want to play for a certain club — thus potentially not performing at their best if they were with that team — it does not help their career and future free agency to lie their way into a trade to that club. Brian’s claim makes no sense. Further, the words, `I want out of Oakland,' have never been said by Sonny. He loved his time with the A’s.”
Now 36, Gray has become a three-time All-Star and is 125-102 with a 3.58 ERA over 13 seasons with the Athletics (2013-17), Yankees (2017-18), Reds (2019-21), Minnesota (2022-23) and Cardinals (2024-25). The right-hander waived a no-trade provision to accept the deal to the Red Sox.
“What did factor into my decision to come to Boston is it feels good to me to go to a place now where you know what, it’s easy to hate the Yankees, right? It’s easy to go out and have that rivalry and go in it with full force, full steam ahead," Gray said. "I like the challenge. I appreciate the challenge. I accept the challenge. But this time around it's just go out and be yourself. Don't try to be anything other than yourself and if people don't like it, it is what it is. I am who I am, and I'm OK with that."
AP MLB: https://apnews.com/hub/mlb
FILE - St. Louis Cardinals' Sonny Gray pitches to a San Francisco Giants batter during the first inning of a baseball game, Sept. 24, 2025, in San Francisco. (AP Photo/Godofredo A. Vásquez, file)
