Building an NBA roster is never just about Xs and Os. It’s a balancing act between strategy, timing, and a whole lot of unpredictability.
And when it comes to dealing with star players, that balancing act turns into a high-wire walk. You better have a Plan A, a Plan B-and probably a Plan C through Z-because in this league, one big decision can reshape the entire landscape.
Few moments capture that chaos better than the summer of 2019, when Kawhi Leonard held the NBA world in suspense. Coming off a title run with the Toronto Raptors, Leonard was the crown jewel of free agency.
Teams across the league hit pause, waiting for his decision. And while the spotlight was squarely on Kawhi, the ripple effects hit plenty of other players-Danny Green included.
Let’s rewind a bit. The Raptors made a bold move in 2018, trading away franchise cornerstone DeMar DeRozan to bring in Leonard.
It wasn’t an easy call, but it paid off in the biggest way possible: Toronto won its first-ever NBA championship less than a year later. Kawhi was already a proven winner from his days in San Antonio, and during that 2018-19 season, he reminded everyone why he was considered the league’s best two-way player.
But the Raptors always knew the clock was ticking. Leonard was on an expiring deal, and the whispers were loud-he wanted to head back to L.A., whether it was with the Lakers or the Clippers. Toronto pushed to keep him, but they also knew the odds.
Meanwhile, Danny Green-who came to Toronto as part of the Kawhi trade-was also on an expiring contract. He’d just played a key role in the Raptors’ title run, and he wanted to stay. But as he explained on a recent episode of No Fouls Given, it wasn’t that simple.
“I would have liked to run it back,” Green said. “They didn’t have the money. They were only going into the tax for one guy, and it wasn’t Danny Green.”
It’s a tough truth in the NBA: sometimes, even when the fit is perfect, the finances just don’t line up. The Raptors were focused on keeping Kawhi, and until that domino fell, everything else was frozen.
“Everybody was waiting on Kawhi,” Green said. “Once he made his decision, everybody knew where everybody else was going.
So all the things were negotiated at that point. Everybody was just waiting for that to happen.”
And when that domino finally did fall-Kawhi choosing the Clippers over the Lakers-it sent shockwaves across the league. For Green, it opened the door to his next chapter.
With Kawhi off the table, the Lakers pivoted and made Green a priority. He said L.A. was always his first choice, but if they’d landed Leonard, he likely would’ve ended up in Dallas.
“I would have been in Dallas,” Green said. “It made sense for everybody to wait for Kawhi, ’cause then you could kind of see where the chips were going to go.”
Once the Lakers missed on Kawhi, they raised their offer to match what the Mavericks had on the table. Green accepted-and the move paid off.
He joined forces with LeBron James and Anthony Davis, and the trio helped deliver a title to Los Angeles in 2020. That gave Green an impressive personal feat: back-to-back championships with two different teams.
Kawhi’s decision didn’t just change the course of two franchises-it reshaped the entire NBA. If he had stayed in Toronto or teamed up with LeBron in L.A., who knows how the league would look today?
But for Danny Green, the waiting game worked out just fine. He found the right fit, added another ring to his collection, and proved once again that in the NBA, timing is everything.