Draymond Green says LeBron James passed on a chance to finish his career with the Golden State Warriors, and Green thinks that was the wrong call.
James, who became a free agent for the first time in eight years after leaving the Los Angeles Lakers, weighed the New York Knicks, Miami Heat, Cleveland Cavaliers and Warriors before choosing the Philadelphia 76ers. He’ll now share the floor with Joel Embiid, Jaylen Brown and Tyrese Maxey in Philadelphia for at least one season.
Green told Marc Spears that he made his pitch directly to James, and it was built around basketball, comfort and life beyond the court.
“I told him all the great things,” Green explained to Andscape. “How cool would it be for him to join Steph, who’s pretty much carried the NBA for the better part of the last 15 years - Bron a little longer, but they are the guys.
And how cool would it be to [challenge] these young guys who are kind of taking over? Their time is up now, to Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and all these [young] guys.
How cool would it be for the two guys who’ve battled on the biggest stage for so many years in the NBA - who now see these younger guys taking over - just for one time to say, ‘Hey, fellas, we can still do this. Yeah, move over’?
How dope would that be?
“Everybody speaks about the basketball side. Most people don’t understand how important it is to have teammates that you rock with at this age; teammates that are like-minded.
Teammates that have similar lives. Teammates that when you go to dinner, you want to go to dinner and sit with.
As you get older in this league, that becomes a weird thing. We’ll have that.
This will be the greatest show on Earth, by the way. Stephen and LeBron together?
“How much has [James] gotten into golf? There’s no better place to be for golf than San Francisco.
I also thought from a business standpoint, there’s a whole business side of business that he hasn’t tapped into [in Silicon Valley]. From a business standpoint, what can that mean?
I know for sure this would be the best organization you’ve ever played in. I know that for certain.”
Green said James ultimately stayed away from Golden State because he couldn’t move past the history between them. James would have taken plenty of heat for joining a team he had faced in four NBA Finals, and Green believes that weighed heavily on him.
“He just couldn’t get over the past, which is, ‘I battled these guys over and over again. What is that now going to look like for me if I come there?
What type of beating am I going to take if I come there?’ And ultimately that’s why it didn’t happen.
I also think that’s why it took so long to make the decision, because I know this (Golden State) was the right decision. He just couldn’t land on it.”
Golden State would have had a loaded mix with Curry, James, Green and Jimmy Butler. Instead, the Warriors are left to chase a title without James, with their hopes tied to the core they still have in place.
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