Wednesday, May 25, 2016

Did Draymond kick on purpose?

If you haven't been watching the NBA Western Conference Finals, I can summarize it for you in one sentence: The Oklahoma City Thunder have been kicking butt, and Draymond Green has been kicking balls. And not basketballs, mind you. In fact, even human balls would be too broad a term for the target of Green's feet. Draymond Green has been kicking only Thunder center Steven Adams' balls, and he has kicked them twice. Ouch.
While repeated testicular assault certainly seems like an intentional infliction of harm, Green - Golden State's scrappy, pesky forward - claims innocence. However, Number 23's defense of his nut-cracking (I am having fun) was far from sound. Does this suggest guilt? Perhaps. A few of the Green's fallacies are detailed below.
1. Red Herring
The debate over this incident is about intent. Did the Warriors' forward kick Adams on purpose, or was it an accident? Draymond claims that the kicks were not targeted low blows, but rather the byproducts of his flailing in attempts to get foul calls (Basketball fans call such exaggeration of contract "flopping"). Essentially, Green blamed his kicks on flopping. Then, he blamed his flopping on Oklahoma City star Russell Westbrook. "Russell said I did it on purpose,” Green said Monday, “but he’s part of the superstar group that started all this acting in the NBA. I didn’t. I sold the call.” By delving into the broader issue of flopping in the NBA, and by pointing fingers directly at another boisterous league personality, Green blatantly diverted attention away from the issue of his guilt. The media would love to play up a Westbrook-Green beef, and my guess is they jumped all over Draymond's calling-out of the Thunder point guard.   
2. Appeal to Ignorance
This is the crux of Green's defense. "I can see how somebody can think it was intentional," he said of his strike, "but yet nobody can go in my head and say, 'Draymond was thinking about kicking him and he kicked him.'" The Michigan State alumnus says that because we can't get inside his head and prove any malice on his behalf, he is innocent. This is a total appeal to ignorance, as Green is really stating that his word is true because it can't be proven false.
3. Straw Man
"If you watch my reaction, I walk back to the three-point line, clap everybody’s hands, turn around and look like, ‘What’s the dude on the floor for?’... I know I didn’t do it on purpose." This might just be bad logic more than it is a straw man, but the shoe fits. In a straw man fallacy, one presents an altered version of the opposition's argument so they can knock it down. Green does that in this quote. Basically, he renders the Draymond-did-it-on-purpose side's argument to be that he acted viciously after his kick, suggesting malevolence. He then knocks this assertion down by noting that he appears unaware of Adams' injury after the kick, and therefore couldn't have knowingly hurt him. Of course, it was not Green's post-kick behavior that led people to feel he kicked on purpose. It was the fact that he struck Adams twice and with impeccable accuracy. (And even if one does watch what #23 does after dealing the blows shown above, it's perfectly reasonable to believe that Green was just pretending to be unaware of the testicle-contact in order to appear innocent.) But because Draymond framed the argument against him in such a way that he could refute it, he certainly tried a straw man. 
In conclusion, Draymond Green's head is a bigger problem than his feet. Not only can we not get inside of it, but it has failed to produce any valid arguments to abate our suspicion. 

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