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Draymond Green was not initially scheduled to trudge up the stairs from the locker room to speak at the podium late Tuesday night, but he knew he had to.
If this was his last night and last game in a Warrior uniform, he was going to finish it off as his fullest, canniest, most honest self. What better way to acknowledge the power and truth of everything the Warriors have experienced in Draymond’s 14 seasons here?
And even if Draymond isn’t traded by Thursday’s deadline in a package for Giannis Antetokounmpo or anybody else, he had to acknowledge that the end is coming soon, anyway. There’s always an ending. This one is near.
“At some point, it’s gonna come to an end, whether that’s a day or two, or a year or two,” Draymond said after the Warriors’ 113-94 loss at Chase Center without Stephen Curry. “It’s gonna come to an end at some point.
“You’ve gotta be OK with that. It’s not something that I can hold onto forever because I can’t play basketball forever. It’s gotta come to an end at some point, anyway.”
Nobody is denying that the Warriors have included Draymond in the Giannis offer — they need to either put Jimmy Butler or Draymond into the deal for salary-matching purposes, and it’s likely that they’d prefer to keep Butler out of it.
Nobody can deny it. Because it’s true. Draymond’s name has been discussed in reports for several days, but he said Tuesday that it didn’t really hit him until Steve Kerr checked in with him on Monday.
And at the podium Tuesday, it’s clear that everything had sunk in. The Warriors have a chance to make the team better and give Curry the best shot at a fifth championship by acquiring Giannis, so they were offering Draymond in the trade.
And Draymond understood.
“I think a lot of people want to know how I feel about it — like, am I upset about it? I’m not at all,” Draymond said. “If that’s what’s best for this organization, that’s what’s best for the organization.”
Today
4 days ago
Tuesday, Jan. 27
If it happens, Draymond wouldn’t be the first foundational dynastic figure to depart — first it was Bob Myers, then Klay Thompson, and it feels like it’s Draymond’s turn, whether he’s traded this week or not. (Or he could be tied heading out the door with Kerr, whose contract expires in July.)
Nothing stays the same. Draymond’s place on this team by Curry’s side seemed like it might last forever, but it won’t.
“I’m not, like, aww, man, they f— me over or something like that,” Draymond said. “I don’t really feel that way. If you would’ve told me 13 and a half years ago, ‘Yo, I’m going to hand you this sheet of paper and you can sign it to be in a place for 13 and a half years, would you sign it?’ And I would’ve signed it faster than you can blink.
“So what do I have to sit and worry about? What do I have to be upset about? I’ve been here for 13 and a half years. That’s longer than probably 98% of the NBA players have been in once place. Guy from Saginaw has been in a place for 13 and a half years.
“I don’t know that it ends at 13 and a half. But if it does, what a f— run it’s been. I’ll take the fine for [the expletive]. What a f— run it’s been.”
Beyond the Giannis talk, the general point has been made and accepted: Draymond will have his jersey retired by this franchise at some point, but, at 35, isn’t good enough anymore to be untouchable in any potential trade and the Warriors aren’t good enough anymore to ignore that. (His outbursts and ejections add to the unbalance of this.)
It’s no shame to be put into an offer that would bring back a two-time MVP in his prime, but some kind of line seems to have been crossed over the past few weeks after the loss of Butler to an ACL tear.
The Warriors need more talent. And if the podium minutes were a booming reminder of Draymond’s force and will, the game was a reminder of why this is happening — Draymond checked out with 4:36 left in the game, the Warriors trailing 103-84. He was -27 in 25 minutes.
There will be changes. That much was palpable around the Warriors on Tuesday; after the game a few players were half-jokingly hugging each other in case they were traded.
Draymond, though, said he hasn’t started saying his farewells.
“This is something I’ve never dealt with before so I don’t really have some guidebook or manual for how it should be,” Draymond said. “So yeah, if there’s a point where I need to say goodbye, I’ll say goodbye.
“I don’t know. It is business as usual. Come out, play, go home, come back tomorrow, fly, maybe, play Thursday, maybe, maybe not. We’ll see.”
Green and Curry have been teammates since Golden State selected Green in the 2012 NBA Draft. | Source: Morgan Ellis/The Standard
So will the Bucks take the Warriors’ offer of Draymond, Jonathan Kuminga, maybe another player or two, plus up to four future first-round picks and probably a couple of swaps, too?
It’s the most direct offer: If the Bucks like Kuminga, no other competing team’s offer has the combination of young talent and accumulation of draft picks. But Milwaukee could also wait until the summer, when other teams will have more picks to offer.
A Warriors source indicated earlier on Tuesday that they don’t know what Milwaukee really wants to do — and that the Warriors had to start evaluating other possible trades to help the team now.
But any other trade might sacrifice pieces that the Warriors could use in a Giannis offer in the summer. The only pressure the Warriors could theoretically put on Milwaukee right now is not a huge one: If you don’t get Kuminga now, we might move him for somebody else by Thursday.
Which probably wouldn’t rank among the top 50 pressure points facing the Bucks in the Giannis situation.
Nobody but the Bucks know what they’re going to do by Thursday, the summer, or whenever. The Warriors and Draymond, though, seem to be coming to their own resolution.
This isn’t the beginning of the end for this fascinating, controversial, and incredibly successful relationship. It’s more like the middle of the end.
“I have so much gratitude for where I am in my career, the run that I’ve been on here,” Draymond said. “I don’t know that it ends or what-not. I don’t. We’ll all see.
“But if it does, it does. All good things must come to an end at some point.”
The Warriors will never have any player or personality like Draymond Green ever again. And if anybody forgets, just get a clip from the 15 minutes he sat at a podium on Tuesday. It’s all there. If it was the last night of his monumental Warriors career, he met that moment.
