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Draymond Green: Players Don't Hear About Charities Their NBA Fines Go Towards
April 22, 2021
Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green questioned why NBA players aren't given better information about the charities selected to receive money from their on-court fines.
Green, who's been fined over $879,000 during his nine-year career, told Joe Vardon of The Athletic on Thursday none of the players he's spoken to have any details about the charity choices:
"We've never heard a single thing about it. For years we've all been told, 'Yeah, the fine money goes to charity,' but we don't hear anything about these charities, we don't have any say so about these charities. Nor do you ever hear, 'Oh your fine money went to said charity.' Maybe that is an opportunity to build a relationship with said charity?
"Honestly, in my opinion it's just this phantom thing that we've heard for years. We've never seen the benefits of where this fine money actually goes."
It's not the first time the concern has been raised.
In 2017, the NBA told CNN's Ahiza Garcia the fine money is collected and then split evenly between the league and the Players Association for distribution to charities of their choice.
From there, the league puts the money into its NBA Cares program, which features over 30 community partners, and the Players Association designates its half to its NBPA Foundation, per CNN.
In 2018, former NBA forward Matt Barnes, who was fined over $414,000 during his career, told Ben Golliver of Sports Illustrated he also wanted to take a more hands-on approach to the situation:
"[The league] took my money, and I never knew where it went. And they're taking the money at such a high rate that it should have gone towards something that I wanted. As players, we earned the money. A $50,000 fine is a s--t load of money. Let me send that to my non-profit or one of my friend's non-profits so that I know it's really making a difference."
As noted in Vardon's report, "the system is set up specifically to prevent any tracing of an individual fine all the way to an individual charity" in order to "avoid any hint of impropriety."
More than $6 million has already been collected during the 2020-21 season, per Spotrac.