The only thing less likely than Draymond Green wanting to leave the Golden State Warriors was the chance that he’d actually do so. The Defensive Player of the Year runner-up was a restricted free agent this summer, affording the reigning champs the right to match any contract he might have signed with a competing team – and thus retaining him for the long-haul.
And why wouldn’t the Warriors be inclined to keep Green as a foundational piece of the franchise? He’s a wildly valuable two-way player, and boasts the perfectly brash, outsized temperament to complement Steph Curry’s buttoned-up professionalism. Those same reasons are also why he would have been foolish to seriously consider offer sheets from other teams. Green and Golden State are a match made in heaven.
And the 25-year-old understood that reality well before free agency officially began on July 1, too. In an interview with Basketball Insiders, Green not only says he knew he’d re-sign with the Warriors all along, but that he took just one call from other interested teams – and it’s not the one you’re thinking of, either.
“It wasn’t much. I talked to one other team and that was really not a serious conversation at all [because] I knew where I wanted to be. I knew where I was going to be and my focus was to have my agent, B.J. Armstrong, work with the Warriors and get a deal done. That was the main focus. I talked to Joe [Lacob]. I talked to Peter [Guber]. I knew where I was going to be, I knew where home was, and we got it done. It was great that the Warriors stepped up to the plate and got it done in the fashion that they did, where I didn’t have to sign an offer sheet or anything like that and we just got the deal done.
[…]
“That other team was not Detroit. I’d rather not say [the team.]”
Green grew up in Saginaw, Mich. and is an alumnus of Michigan State University. Considering his well-known affinity for the Great Lakes State and the Detroit Pistons’ gaping hole at power forward without Greg Monroe, a potential union between the parties always seemed plausible. When reports emerged of the incumbents low-balling Green early in negotiations, some started it might even be a realistic possibility.
But that smoke yielded no fire, and Golden State agreed to terms on a five-year, $85 million deal with its emotional leader mere hours after free agency began – confirming what logical NBA followers, and apparently Green, knew would happen all along.
[Via Basketball Insiders]
