Draymond Green had confidence the Warriors could get Kevin Durant more than a year in advance of the superstar signing a contract with Golden State. Green joined JJ Redick and Tommy Alter on "The Old Man and the Three" podcast, and elaborated on the process of the Warriors eventually coming to an agreement with Durant.
First, Green clarified his initial conversation with Durant following the Warriors' Game 7 loss to the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2016 NBA Finals.
"No we were actually on Facetime in the locker room, and we were just talking about the game," Green told Redick and Alter. "If you don't know anything else about Kevin, you have to know that he absolutely loves basketball. Kevin will watch 10-year-olds play basketball, like he absolutely loves basketball."
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Green says KD rang him up from the locker room, and the two did not speak specifically about any type of move for Durant to join the Warriors later that summer.
Draymond did say that he was preparing for Durant's potential move the previous offseason, as he took slightly less money than he could in order to preserve some cap space.
"Who I did call that night on my way home was Bob Myers 'hey man what do we have to do to get Kevin Durant, because I know took less money,' " Green said. "When I signed my first $82 million contract, I took less than what I could have gotten so that we could pay Kevin the max the following year. Like I was already looking ahead, like 'hey we could possibly get Kevin Durant.'
"The most I could take was $85 million. For some reason, my agent asked what number do you feel comfortable at? I wrote $82 million on a paper, he's like alright, circle it. But if you circle it, this is what I'm going to get so make sure if this is the number, just let me know. I circled it, and he walked out."
Golden State Warriors
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That negotiation came the summer after Draymond and the Warriors won the team's first title in 2015. The following summer, Green says he flew in the day of the team's meeting with Durant in the Hamptons.
Green says that as the meeting progressed and eventually the players stepped out to let Durant's management and the Warriors' front office and coach Steve Kerr talk, Draymond knew KD was already leaning toward joining Golden State.
"He's literally sitting there talking to us like 'yeah man this is going to be fun' just sitting back chilling like 'I'm looking forward to this' this that and the other, and I'm sitting there thinking to myself like 'Oh man, he's already in, like this is done."
The rest, as they say, is history. Durant won two NBA Finals MVPs and brought two more titles to Draymond, Klay Thompson and Steph Curry and the rest of Dub Nation.
Draymond and KD were thought to have beef for a time after Durant's exit from the Warriors to join the Brooklyn Nets, but the two cleared things up in a Bleacher Report interview before the 2021-22 season began.
As he has continued to grow his platform away from the court, we should expect to hear plenty of insightful stories from Draymond about his Warriors tenure.