After a hectic NBA trade deadline, Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy was adamant that franchise icon Draymond Green was not involved in discussions with the Milwaukee Bucks regarding a potential deal for superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo.
“OK, well, you’re putting words in my mouth, OK,” Dunleavy said after The San Francisco Standard’s Danny Emerman asked if Green had been on the table in talks with the Bucks. “That’s an unbelievable assumption.”
Golden State owner Joe Lacob backed Dunleavy’s message in an exclusive interview with The San Francisco Standard’s Tim Kawakami published on Friday.
“[Green] was never discussed in a trade; Mike was 100 percent correct [about] what he said,” Lacob told Kawakami. “I know he got a lot of crap for that. And it did look defensive. I mean, I think he would say that in retrospect.
“But the truth is, the way these things are, you don’t just easily banter around names unless you’re getting serious. … We never really got engagement on some of the big deals to the point where you get into specific names. People can look at the roster and they can make assumptions about who might or might not have to go if you’ve got a certain person.”
Golden State ultimately traded for Kristaps Porziņģis — not Antetokounmpo.
For a while, though, it appeared there was a reasonable chance that one of Green or Jimmy Butler would be moved in a deal for Antetokounmpo, mainly because of their large salaries.
Lacob, however, reiterated that Green was not shopped and remains an integral part of the Warriors organization.
“But I can tell you he was never shopped in any way,” Lacob told Kawakami. “He’s a core person in our franchise. You don’t trade a Draymond Green simply or easily. You do it if you have to, and you’re getting tremendous value and you’re improving your team. Even Draymond has said he understands that. You have to look at these things.
“But his name was never specifically discussed with another team. And that’s the truth.”
Discussed in trades or not, Green clearly still is a big part of the Warriors and their plan’s moving forward.
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