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After costing the Golden State Warriors a possible win against the Houston Rockets on Thursday by kicking James Harden in the head, Draymond Green has been vocally trying to defend his actions. Green strongly believes his high kicks are a natural act and that he is being unfairly targeted by the NBA.

Well, according to NBA Executive VP of Basketball Operations Kiki VanDeWeghe, Green is not being targeted. He simply just keeps breaking the rules.

VanDeWeghe did multiple interviews on Sunday, reiterating the same thing -- Green's actions are not natural and are harming other players. He also kept saying how the NBA is focusing on "unnatural acts" like Green's high kicks this season, because of an uptick of violations in general from last season.

Here's VanDeWeghe with Sam Amick of the USA Today:

"Our rules are for every player," VanDeWeghe told USA TODAY Sports. "We want each play judged according to the rules, as best possible, and the rules applied fairly across our whole league. That's very important to us. We don't make exceptions for players. They are applied to everybody."

From VanDeWeghe's interview with ESPN's Chris Haynes, where the NBA's VP said Green was wrong to criticize James Harden:

"The big difference becomes safety and the potential of injuring somebody," he said. "That's the big difference. Players embellish contact to draw attention. It's gotten better since instituting the flopping rule on defense. But if a player flails his arms and strikes a player in the face, then that's a cause for concern. It's not one particular player or two. The competition committee spent a lot of time looking at this and we decided that if the move doesn't justify the movement, then we have to act."

And here's VanDeWeghe with the San Jose Mercury News' Anthony Slater, explaining the differences between Green's actions and Russell Westbrook's kick earlier this season, which he got a technical for:

"It's the suddenness, angle of the movement, where it makes contact, all of those things," VanDeWeghe said of the differing penalties. "These are really judged individually. You have to take all these things to account. The Westbrook one he basically went up for a shot, kicked his leg back and hit an opponent. That one he was not looking at the defender. But you have to be responsible for your body movements. That was judged a technical."

"The difference, getting into specifics with Draymond," VanDeWeghe continued. "The last one, Draymond was fouled on the play, he hit a defender with his off-arm, left arm, in the neck, head area. Then he kicked his leg up above the defender's head. As he brought his leg down, he hit his defender in the face with his heel. So that was judged as more severe than the Westbrook one."

VanDeWeghe's media blitz likely won't bring any comfort to the always opinionated Green. The Warriors All-Star sees himself as a modern day version of the Pistons' Bad Boys and believes that his reputation is the reason his kicks keep getting scrutinized. Of course as VanDeWeghe said in three different interviews, that is not the case.

Green is causing harm to other players, which is why he is being penalized. So as long as Green keeps drawing contact with his flailing kicks, the officials will keep penalizing him for breaking the league's rules.