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Draymond Green could be traded this summer as the Warriors face a brutal cap reality
Draymond Green has spent the entirety of his 14-year NBA career with the Golden State Warriors, and if the franchise wants him, he’ll retire in the Bay Area.
That was the clear message Green issued Wednesday, May 6 while acting as a guest host on ESPN’s “Inside the NBA” alongside Ernie Johnson, Kenny Smith and Charles Barkley.
“Warriors forward Draymond Green told ‘Inside the NBA’ that he doesn’t [see] himself in another uniform, but the franchise has to feel the same way,” Marc J. Spears reported via X. “Green told me during a @KJWines dinner that he wants to stay and that if the Warriors are fair and want him back, he will work fairly to stay.”
GettySteph Curry of the Golden State Warriors.
Green has one year remaining on his contract, a player option for 2026-27 that pays him $27.7 million. He turned 36 in March.
Steph Curry, a two-time MVP and Green’s career-long running mate, also has one year remaining on his contract. Curry said following Golden State’s loss to the Phoenix Suns in the Western Conference’s final play-in tournament game last month that he intends to play multiple more seasons and hopes to work out a contract extension with the team this summer.
“It’s OK to acknowledge that it’s gonna end at some point, but we all know that it’s on the horizon,” Curry told The Athletic. “We’re all trying to extend it as long as we can.”
Head coach Steve Kerr is in the midst of extension talks with ownership and has said he doesn’t intend to leave the team while Curry remains.
However, Marc Stein of “The Stein Line” recently reported that Warriors ownership wants a stronger, longer commitment from the 60-year-old Kerr than his stated loyalty to Curry’s playing career.
Meanwhile, Stein said ESPN is aggressively pursuing Kerr to return to broadcasting as a prominent voice of the league.
GettyDraymond Green of the Golden State Warriors.
Then there is the organization itself to consider.
Golden State moved on from Klay Thompson when the time came. Curry, though, is a different story. He remains an All-NBA-caliber player in his late 30s and has the gravitas of an all-time great.
The Warriors clearly want to keep both Curry and Kerr. If they do, there is feasibly a hastened rebuild that could at least render Golden State competitive at the top of the second tier of the West, below perhaps only the defending champion Oklahoma City Thunder and the rapidly rising San Antonio Spurs. And it would be remiss to leave the Minnesota Timberwolves out of that conversation at this point.
Continuing to pay Green “fairly,” as he described it, wouldn’t necessarily be the most conducive path to meaningful winning. His defense remains elite and his connection with Curry borders on ESP levels. But Barkley put it clearly on Wednesday via a challenge to the Warriors organization as currently constructed around a core of aged veterans.
“It’s over for the Warriors. No disrespect,” Barkley said. “It ends for every old team. You had your run, you get old. You let Klay go, you and Steph on the backside of your career. It just passed you by.”
Charles Barkley tells Draymond the Warriors run is OVER:
Barkley: It’s over for the Warriors. No disrespect. It ends for every old team. You had your run, you get old, you let Klay go. You and Steph on the backside of your career, It just passed you by
Draymond: We had that hug
“We had that hug for a reason,” Green responded, referencing an on-court embrace between himself, Curry and Kerr after losing to the Suns and missing out on the No. 8 seed in the playoffs. “We’re not oblivious. This could be it.”
Max Dible covers the NFL, NBA and MLB for Heavy.com, with a focus on the Green Bay Packers, Minnesota Vikings, Chicago Bears and Cleveland Browns. He covered local and statewide news as a reporter for West Hawaii Today and served as news director for BigIslandNow.com and Pacific Media Group's family of Big Island radio stations before joining Heavy. More about Max Dible
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