On the night of November 16, 2025, Draymond Green, a forward for the Golden State Warriors, found himself embroiled in a confrontation with a fan during a road game against the New Orleans Pelicans. The players lined up down the lane for free throws at the Smoothie King Center in New Orleans. From there, the rest of the incident played out exactly as one would expect.
The fan involved, identified as 35-year-old Sam Green from New Orleans, wore a black polo emblazoned with the Pelicans logo. And then he began heckling Draymond Green with an “Angel Reese” chant. This throwback critique ridiculed Green for not attempting a single shot, despite him already pulling down double digit rebounds.
Needless to say, Draymond Green, a generally composed and under control player in the NBA, didn’t appreciate the taunts and took to yelling profanities at Sam Green. Things got heated as he warned one fan to stop making the “Angel Reese” comments or he was going to knock him out.
By all accounts, viewed from the stands, Draymond Green walked all the way across court to get to Sam Green, literally inches away as they had a discussion. Things really escalated when Draymond picked up a shooting foul guarding Pelicans forward Herb Jones.
Game officials stepped in red hot quickly, keeping Draymond Green away from the fan and physically breaking up and separating the two to end the interaction. Elliott waved to an army of ushers surrounding Sam Green and flashed a peace sign to warn him. Instead, they allowed him to remain in his front-row seat for the duration of the game.
Despite the unexpected confrontation, this (understandably) left Sam Green in pretty high spirits over the exchange. He also posted in response to the incident, saying,
“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.” – Sam Green
Draymond Green’s history makes it clear this was not the first time Green sought confrontational instigation on the court. He’s been fined and hit with technical fouls in the past. Most incredibly, in 2022 he was handed a $25,000 disciplinary fine for using foul language towards a fan. His emotionally combustible persona regularly goesad for combative, trollish and actively adversarial exchanges with angry constituents that overheat in seconds.
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