Woman's worth

 Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors teleported in the other night from the 1950s, when men were men and June Cleaver had supper on the table when Ward walked in the door. It wasn't a good look for him, but then it hardly ever is when Draymond gets his knickers in a twist.

This time it was because a New Orleans Pelicans fan kept calling him "Angel Reese," on account of Draymond missed a few shots and then rebounded his own misses. This has become something of a trademark for Reese, a not-so-great shooter but maybe the best  rebounder in the WNBA.

So the fan taunted Draymond by referring to him as another pretty good basketball player, which makes you think he wasn't trying very hard. You gotta have want-to in today's highly competitive trolling market, after all.

Then again, Pelicans Fan did achieve the desired goal: He got under Draymond's skin.

So much so that Draymond stalked over to said fan, and there was a tense moment or two as Draymond got in the dude's face. Fortunately security showed up before anything actually happened, and the fan was told to sit down and shut up or he'd be ejected.

Anyway, this gets us back to June and Ward and 1950s Draymond.

After the game, see, he was asked about the incident, and he said what upset him was being called by a woman's name.

"He just kept calling me a woman," Draymond explained/complained. "It was a good joke at first, but you can't keep calling me a woman. I got four kids, one on the way. You can't keep calling me a woman."

OK, first off: You don't have another child on the way, Draymond. That would be your wife who's handling that. All you have to do is stand there and say, "Breathe, honey," every so often

Secondly ... well, where to start?

I suppose as a human of the male persuasion myself (and someone who's been around male athletes most of my life), I could talk about testosterone and machismo and the warrior mentality, and how it encourages a certain worldview. Call it the Code Of Badass-ery, and it's a thing of the male blood that runs all the way from Achilles fileting Hector with a sword to Draymond Green fileting a guy's head with his elbow in pursuit of a free-range basketball.

In such a world, calling an opponent a woman remains an annoyingly persistent insult. Even if it's 2025 and June's not wearing pearls and high heels as she whisks a tuna noodle casserole out of the oven, but running corporations and elbowing heads in pursuit of rebounds themselves. And generally being as badass as any Draymond Green.

Truth is, these days a guy like Draymond whining about being called a woman isn't so much an insult to women as a curiosity pathetically out of its time. It evokes less outrage than eyerolls and discrete snickers, as if Draymond had shown up wondering when the next stagecoach from Dodge City was due.

I mean, good lord, it's been going on 40 years since Jim Everett brawled with sportsbabbler Jim Rome because Rome kept referring to him as "Chrissie" -- again, not nearly the insult either man thought it was,  considering "Chrissie" Evert was tougher than either of them. And how long has it been since Caitlin Clark and Diana Taurasi and so many others made a laughingstock of the old sneer, "You shoot like a girl"?

Because nowadays the proper comeback would be, "Yeah? Too bad you don't."

And as for Draymond Green ...

Too bad he doesn't, either, apparently.