Mike Dunleavy’s recent comments about Jonathan Kuminga’s trade request raised eyebrows across the entire NBA, but Draymond Green believes they might be misconstrued.

To refresh your memory, this is what the Warriors general manager told reporters on Tuesday when asked about Kuminga’s request to be traded from Golden State.

“As far as demand, I’m aware of that,” he said. “In terms of demands, there needs to be demand.”

Those remarks didn’t sit well with Kuminga’s agent, Aaron Turner, and as Green revealed, even one of Green’s close friends texted him stating that what Dunleavy said was out of line. But Green quickly corrected his friend, and he made it a point to try and share his perspective on Dunleavy’s words in a recent “The Draymond Green Show” episode.

“When I first read the quote, I was like, ‘Hm, that’s spicy.’ And then when you actually watch the clip, you’re like, ‘Oh, I get what he was saying.’ He’s answering the question about yes, I know they made a trade demand, but there has to be demand. In order for there to be demand, we got to scour the market. We’re going to search the market and see what demand there is. And that’s a fact. Oftentimes in today’s day and age, we just read the quote and are like, ‘Oh man, this guy did that.’ As soon as I got home, one of my friends texted me, ‘Mike’s wrong. He shouldn’t have done that.’ And he said, ‘I read the quote,’ and I said, ‘I read the quote too, and it’s not quite what you thought.’

“But also, I think one thing we tend to forget is that this is a business. In business, there’s negotiation. That’s a huge part of a general manager and an agent’s job is negotiations. When having negotiations, sometimes they get tense. There’s things that are said during negotiations that the public don’t know. We don’t know. I don’t know. That’s just the nature of negotiation. With that, there’s some things said, there’s shots taken. All of that. There’s shots from the agent more so than the general manager because general managers aren’t really allowed to talk about negotiations, agents are. So I’m sure there were some things said in negotiations and all that that could also be a part of the response [from Dunleavy]. I think you have to take all of that into account.

“I also think you have to take into account that general managers don’t speak to players. They speak to a player, what’s up, they check in, you got a problem, but they’re over everything. Coaches more so speak to players. So when you see quotes from general managers, they’re oftentimes not talking to players. They’re only talking to players when things go bad. Who general managers are usually talking to is representation, it’s other people around the market, other general managers and front office members. When general managers make quotes, that’s usually who they’re speaking to.”

So, Green believes Dunleavy’s blunt remarks actually were a direct message to Turner — not necessarily Kuminga.

Regardless, shortly after Dunleavy’s press conference, Kuminga, after 16 consecutive DNP-CDs (Did Not Play, Coach’s Decision), was thrust into Steve Kerr’s rotation and dropped 20 points in 21 minutes.

Green also applauded Kuminga’s ability to stay ready after his strong performance in the Warriors’ loss to the Toronto Raptors.

“So that’s what I’ll say to this situation and also to my friend who was like, ‘Oh, he’s wrong.’ General managers aren’t usually speaking to players. And in this case, I don’t believe the general manager was speaking to the player.”

And that’s that, for now.

Download and follow the Dubs Talk Podcast