Draymond Green Blocked Warriors From Trading for Star Forward in Offseason

The Golden State Warriors were big-game hunting last year, looking for another big star to pair up with Steph Curry to try to get them back to title-contending status. They landed their big fish in Jimmy Butler at the trade deadline. But according to Draymond Green, he told the ownership group not to pull the trigger on a deal for another big star forward the previous summer.

Speaking with Anthony Slater of ESPN, Green said he told owner Joe Lacob and GM Mike Dunleavy last year not to surrender a boatload of assets to the Utah Jazz for Laurie Markkanen.

"That's one of the beautiful things about having this organization," Green said. "We're not sitting here like, 'Yo, give away everything because we don't give a f--- about what this thing looks like in 10 years.' We do. And so I think it's only fair to Mike that he's given a future, too. It’s important to do it the way that we’ve done it. We found a good balance where we can compete and possibly win now and yet still have that flexibility and resources for the future.”

I'm a big fan of [Markkanen's] game. But I think if you want to do something so huge you better be certain that this is the move. You usually don't win those things against Danny Ainge. I look at history.

In the end, the Dubs decided not to get fleeced by Ainge, and instead surrendered just one first-rounder to get Butler from the Miami Heat at the deadline, which Green called an "aggressive but reasonable" move.

The Warriors went 23-8 after the Butler trade, so it certainly worked out well, but they lost in the second round of the playoffs.

Markkanen, meanwhile, wasted another year of his prime with the woeful Jazz, who finished with the worst record in all of basketball last season, going 17-65. The 28-year-old 7-footer played only 47 games (he's never played more than 68 games, and that was in his rookie season). He's averaged 23 ppg in his three years in Utah, and just began his 4th season there.