Don't panic: We're about to discuss Draymond Green, but not because of his taste for provocation or his general Draymond-hood. It's just a little item ahead of NBA free agency opening Tuesday afternoon, which means there may be less here than meets the eye, but just enough to meet the funny bone.
Green will reportedly decline his $27 million player option for 2027, days after Golden State Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy Jr. said the team was optimistic that he would return. OK, that's a little odd, but nothing to endanger your delicates over. It's the only thing we really know.
But Green's decision offers the tantalizing notion that he might even consider leaving the only NBA team he's ever known, even though the more likely outcome is that he's taking a pay cut to bring in some new old blood. The Athletic suspects Green might re-up in Golden State anyway, while ESPN suggests it might be part of a byzantine plan for the Warriors to sign LeBron James to the $15.1 million midlevel exception, and somehow find a way to relitigate the 2016 NBA Finals all within one team.
Furthermore, the ESPN version of this Warriors offseason believes that after the team could use Green's money to get LeBron, they'd pursue a trade scenario that includes the Phantom Zone's Anthony Davis in exchange for a package hinged upon moving 36-year-old Jimmy Butler, still recovering from ACL surgery. Until the back end of Green's contractual reveal can blow this scenario to smithereens, this is going to be a thing. A ridiculous thing, perhaps, but at this time of year, the only choices you have on any NBA news are ridiculous or preposterous.
This may just be an exclusively ESPN thing, but the LeBron-to-Warriors scenarios have been floating in the ether for a couple years now, gaining some life when James and Curry finally became Olympic teammates in 2024 and enjoyed the experience. The new developments this week are Green's move plus a supposed stalemate in negotiations between James and the Lakers. Then again, the function of this ESPN report could be to generate some movement on the latter item.
There isn't a rooting interest to be had in any of these scenarios, but it does extend the twilight of the LeBron Era, and Golden State is the last intriguing pretend scenario left for him. It's not like anyone fancies him in Utah, for example. The Warriors were a dynasty, but could have been an uber-dynasty if they could've made more than one shot in the final five minutes of Game 7 in 2016. In that universe, LeBron's only post-Miami title would have been the COVID bubble championship in 2020, and people are still trying to invalidate that one on the grounds of rampant international disease. So let's make a fictional history for him by putting him on the team that whooped him the other three times. Why not? After all, they're still doing movies about Yoda, now in baby form.
The idea of the Curry, LeBron, and AD all on the same NBA team, outside of NBA All-Star Weekend, is fun to entertain in the feverbrained world of offseason basketball, where anything is possible if the salary dumps are big enough. To have this team scuffling in the Western Conference would be the pinnacle of athletic gerontocracy, even if the actual result will be far more mundane. But that's what we have for you at this point in the sport's news cycle. Hey, it's either this or waiting for Summer League to start. The choice is yours.
