Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (23) reacts to a call against the Atlanta Hawks in the second quarter at State Farm Arena.
Brett Davis-Imagn Images
Amid the Golden State Warriors’ trade interest in Giannis Antetokounmpo, veteran forward Draymond Green, who has played with the organization his entire career, saw his future with the team in question as he potentially could have been part of a trade package. But it’s not the first time the Warriors could have lost the four-time champion. During a recent episode of his podcast, ‘The Draymond Green Show,’ Green acknowledged that he almost left to the Memphis Grizzlies via free agency in 2023.
“In negotiations, you wanna have another team, you sometimes have to make it real to the team that, ‘hey, you got something else.’ The Warriors didn’t really have the money I wanted. The Grizzlies are offering me $10 million more per year,” Green recalled. “It wasn’t that I verbally committed, it was that I called the Warriors and said, ‘Yo, I’m gonna go to the Grizzlies, can y’all do all y’all can to work that sign-and-trade and make it work for me.”
Amid those negotiations, Green came to realize that the Warriors really wanted him to remain with the organization.
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“To the Warriors credit, they then went into negotiations with the Grizzlies. And I will say they moved the goalposts on the Grizzlies a bit,” Green continued. “But once they moved the goalposts on the Grizzlies too, it also clear to me like, they really want me here … it wasn’t a ploy or a change of heart. Once I was gonna go they ultimately got to a better place for me and that was done. But we weren’t bluffing, it was a real thing.”
That offseason, Draymond Green ended up re-signing with the Warriors in free agency on a four-year, $100 million contract. He had a player option for this offseason which he exercised and then re-signed once again with the Warriors on a one-year contract worth a little over $27 million.