More news is coming out about the Draymond Green arrest, and apparently the guy who he hit was a Michigan State football player.
His story is slightly different than the details that the police released right after the confrontation happened.
Police originally claimed that Green didn’t punch the man, but slapped him. Jermaine Edmondson, the victim, said that Green punched him.
The police also originally said that the altercation was provoked by Edmondson taunting Green. According to Edmondson, that’s not entirely accurate, because it was not their first contentious meeting.
Draymond Green addresses his legal issues. pic.twitter.com/m87rrnIjh9
— NBA on ESPN (@ESPNNBA) July 13, 2016
Edmondson said that Green bumped into him at another restaurant the night before, and after Edmondson told him to watch where he was going, things escalated into a fight. He said that he and his girlfriend were choked by the people Green was with. Police weren’t involved in this prior altercation.
The situation at Conrad’s Grill happened the next night. Coincidentally, Edmondson saw Green at this place, too. Edmondson approached him to basically let Green know that he was upset about the previous night. Edmondson emphasized that he didn’t want the encounter to escalate into another fight, but that Green punched him in the jaw as he tried to talk to him.
There’s two sides to every story, and this version told by Edmondson conspicuously paints the victim in as positive of a light as possible. Nobody should condone what Green did, but it sounds as if Edmondson could have easily let this whole thing go, but relished in the opportunity to provoke a professional athlete and pick a fight.
There were no injuries reported, and hopefully both parties are able to move on from this without any lingering drama. Green has said that he wants to speak with Edmondson personally to try to make things right.
Green has proven on the court that he can be baited by opponents to lose his cool and act out aggressively, and it sounds like this situation mirrored some of his on-court behavior. Professional athletes are big targets for people with a chip on their shoulder, and it’s possible to objectively look at this unfortunate situation and assess blame to each side.
There doesn’t have to be a dichotomous outcome of one guy being right and the other being wrong. Did Edmondson want to provoke Green into a fight? The facts of the case make that extremely likely. Was Green justified in obliging him to that fight? No.
Hopefully this case gets resolved quickly. Green can use it as an opportunity to learn to not only be extremely careful when engaging with members of the public, but also to try to get his anger in check so that confrontations in the future can be diffused more peacefully.