Putting together an NBA roster is part science and part art. It\u2019s also part luck, because there are so many variables at play that are not in the team\u2019s control. NBA general managers need to have a Plan A, a Plan B, and a few other backups just in case their best-laid plans fail. That\u2019s especially true when it comes to dealing with star players.<\/p>\n
Well, as far as the stars are concerned, along with the teams, other players who are moved around with them are also left in the lurch. But then, more than any other team sport, stars matter in the NBA. They drive the conversation, they sell the shoes, and most importantly, it\u2019s nearly impossible to win big without them.<\/p>\n
Advertisement<\/p>\n
The Toronto Raptors understood that better than most when they traded forKawhi Leonard<\/a> in the summer of 2018. The move wasn\u2019t an easy one to make\u2026 It meant sending away longtime Raptor DeMar DeRozan. However, it paid off less than 11 months later when Toronto won its first NBA title.<\/p>\n Kawhi had already won a title in San Antonio, and he was the best two-way player in the league at that point. However, the Raptors knew that they only had him for one season. His contract was expiring, and it was an open secret that he wanted to go to L.A. to play for either the Lakers or the Clippers.<\/p>\n Since Kawhi was the biggest prize on the free agent market, the rest of the league came to a virtual standstill. Teams awaited his decision. That left other players in an uncertain flux, includingDanny Green<\/a>.<\/p>\n The small forward had come to Toronto with Kawhi, and his contract was also up. As much as he would have liked to stay, the decision was out of his hands.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cI would have liked to run it back,\u201d Greensaid<\/a> on the most recent episode of No Fouls Given. \u201c[The Raptors] didn\u2019t have the money. They were only going into the tax for one guy, and it wasn\u2019t Danny Green.\u201d<\/p>\n Though the Raptors tried keep Kawhi in Toronto, he ended up with the Clippers. Of course, the legitimacy of that move has been in question since Pablo Torre uncovered the Aspiration scandal. Still, it meant that the Raptors and Green both had to pivot. Once the Kawhi domino fell, so did the rest of the league.<\/p>\n \u201cEverybody was waiting on Kawhi; once he made his decision, everybody knew where everybody else was going,\u201d Green said. \u201cSo all the things were negotiated at that point. Everybody was just waiting for that to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n When Kawhi spurned the Lakers to go to the Clippers, that opened the door for Green to put on the purple and gold, which he said was his first choice. \u201cI would have been in Dallas,\u201d he said if the Lakers had signed Kawhi. \u201cIt made sense for everybody to wait for Kawhi, \u2019cause then you could kind of see where the chips were going to go.\u201d<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The move ended up working out for Green. The Lakers raised their offer to match what the Mavericks had on the table. And, after Green took it, he went on to pull off his own personal back-to-back as he won the 2020 title alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis.<\/p>\n Kawhi\u2019s decision was a huge sliding doors moment, not just for himself and for Green, but for the entire NBA. Who knows what would have happened if he had stayed in Toronto or gone to the Lakers? But for Green at least, everything turned out great.<\/p>\n The post \u201cThey Were Only Going to the Tax for 1 Guy\u201d: Danny Green Explains Why He Left Toronto After Winning 2019 Championship<\/a> appeared first on The SportsRush<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Putting together an NBA roster is part science and part art. It\u2019s also part luck, because there are…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":548253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3770],"tags":[495,7,559,686,1333,3213,164,529,185,6,279,681,969,2152,680,476,3820],"class_list":{"0":"post-548252","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-toronto-raptors","8":"tag-anthony-davis","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-clippers","11":"tag-dallas","12":"tag-danny-green","13":"tag-demar-derozan","14":"tag-golden-state-warriors","15":"tag-kawhi-leonard","16":"tag-lebron-james","17":"tag-nba","18":"tag-pascal-siakam","19":"tag-raptors","20":"tag-san-antonio","21":"tag-the-lakers","22":"tag-toronto","23":"tag-toronto-raptors","24":"tag-torontoraptors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115925770866515914","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=548252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/548252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/548253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=548252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=548252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=548252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}