Thompson: The NBA missed the point with Draymond Green’s suspension, and it’s

SAN FRANCISCO — It was supposed to be a most epic night at Chase Center. Fans at a fever pitch, trying to outdo the fervor of the Sacramento fans in Games 1 and 2. E-40 back in the building. A palpable tension filling the arena before tip-off. The defending champion Warriors playing for their postseason lives. For their reputation. For their dynasty. In their way are the Kings — the exceptional, upstart Kings — looking to shock the world and announce their arrival as serious contenders.

The energy would pour through the television. Millions watching, perhaps a record audience for a first-round series that already produced the league’s best opening-game audience in over 20 years. Inevitably, Draymond Green would end up one-on-one against Domantas Sabonis. The electricity of playoff basketball shot directly into the veins.

But the NBA doesn’t want that. Not enough, anyway. Not more than they want to foray into respectability politics.

In an interview with ESPN’s Malika Andrews, Joe Dumars, the NBA’s head of basketball operations, revealed the reason for the decision to suspend Draymond Green for Game 3 of the Western Conference first-round series on Thursday was three-fold. The act itself, Green’s behavior afterward — “conduct detrimental” he called it — and that he’s a repeat offender.

“We think in totality,” Dumars said on “NBA Today,” “you take all three of those things, and that’s where you end up landing with a suspension. If you separate them out individually, maybe not.”

So the suspension was not just about him stepping on Sabonis’ chest in Game 2. No doubt, it could’ve been. If the NBA had said the stomp alone or the possibility of Sabonis being too injured to play Thursday was worthy of suspension, that decision would’ve come earlier. That stance doesn’t need the debating that Dumars said went on all day Tuesday.

But it’s difficult to take that hard-line stance when Sabonis was the instigator. This wasn’t a situation Green concocted out of nowhere. He was aptly baited. Dumars said the NBA was satisfied with the live punishment the refs gave Sabonis, a technical foul. If this was just about Green’s stomp, they were surely satisfied with the punishment the refs gave him on the court too: a Flagrant 2 foul and ejection from a game the Warriors eventually lost.

But the driving force for the suspension was the antics afterward. Green running to center court and imploring the Sacramento fans to shower him with boos. Then standing on a chair doing more yelling, hurling expletives back to the birds the crowd was flipping. Then, the situation entered into respectability politics. It became more about decorum and ideas of professionalism.

In the end, it came down to the NBA not liking how Green operates.

He’s too loud. Too brash. Too aggressive. Too demonstrative. Too annoying. Too arrogant. Too unapologetic about being too extra. It had been reported and sure felt like a…