Draymond Green didn’t exactly keep his Puerto Rico golf trip with LeBron James casual.
Green said he used the time with James to make a full-on recruiting push for the Golden State Warriors, and he didn’t try to downplay how aggressive it was.
"I'd be crazy if we're together for x amount of days and at no point am I like, 'Yo, we need to chop it up. What the hell going on?
What we doing?'" Green said.
"Of course I did that and of course the pitch was crazy. ... With the things I shared in it, it's definitely gonna make the brain work a little bit."
Both Green and James are free agents, though Green is still widely expected to re-sign with the Warriors. Green declined a $27.7 million player option, which had already fueled speculation that James could be headed to the Bay. Green’s admission that he made the pitch only adds another layer to that chatter, and it also suggests he still doesn’t know where he’s going himself.
James, meanwhile, has kept his free-agent plans mostly quiet. He’s been linked to the Cavaliers, Heat, 76ers and Warriors, but nothing has been made public.
The word Green chose to describe his pitch stood out: “crazy.” That alone hints the Warriors may have sold James on something beyond the obvious basketball fit.
Some of that is easy to see. James lives in Los Angeles, so the Bay Area would keep him relatively close to home. He’d also be joining Stephen Curry and playing for Steve Kerr, whose player-friendly culture could appeal to the 41-year-old four-time MVP.
If Golden State were to land James, the team would likely have to move fast. The reported sequence would start with trading Moses Moody into a rebuilding team’s trade exception, a move that would create $13 million more in cap room to fit both James and Green. The article notes that deal has probably already been lined up, even if Moody hasn’t been told about the trade rumors.
From there, the Warriors would bring Green back on a two-year deal worth about $36 million, then offer James the full non-taxpayer mid-level exception of $15 million.
Those moves would keep Golden State just below the $209 million first apron, and using the NTMLE would hard-cap the team there.
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