Mike Dunleavy on Draymond Green trade rumors: ‘His name was not in conversations’

LOS ANGELES — Golden State Warriors general manager Mike Dunleavy made his first public comments since Thursday’s trade deadline — and within those comments, he asserted four-time NBA champion Draymond Green’s name was not in any trade conversations.

The exchange was noteworthy on several fronts, especially given how much speculation there was surrounding the Warriors’ pursuit of Milwaukee Bucks star Giannis Antetokounmpo. When asked if he felt Green’s relationship with the organization needed to be repaired at all because of the fact that Green, after 13 1/2 years with the team, was no longer viewed as an untouchable, Dunleavy pushed back.

“I’d walk that back a little bit,” Dunleavy said. “His name was not in conversations. Other than the ones where teams call me and ask about him, which they do every year. So, there’s nothing new there. The idea that he stayed with the Warriors past the deadline was greatly exaggerated. It was never a possibility of him not being here, or remotely close, to be honest. And I’ve conveyed that to him, he knows that, but when stuff comes up in the media I think it feels different for the players. I think that’s the first time it happened with Draymond, so he’s dealing with it in a certain way, but the reality is nothing was close. And nothing was considered. Draymond was not being shopped or talked about in deals. So, it’s a little misleading, we’re kind of picking up the pieces here, but I think he’s in a great spot, and so are we moving forward.”

The answer was interesting for several reasons, especially since Green acknowledged after Thursday’s win over the Phoenix Suns that he didn’t feel comfortable that he wouldn’t get dealt until the deadline passed at 3 p.m. ET on Thursday. Green also said on an episode of his podcast released earlier Saturday that he had spoken to Dunleavy about the deadline and what could happen with his future in The Bay.

“He texts me, he said, ‘Call me, it’s not urgent,’” Green said on “The Draymond Green Show.” “‘Not urgent. Call me when you get a chance.’ So, I’m like, all right, not urgent means I’m not about to get traded. And he asked me about a couple deals, ‘What do you think of this deal? What do you think of that deal?’ And we talked for quite a while. And then he’s like, ‘By the way, on the Giannis front, obviously we’ve spoken about Giannis. We’ve talked about what picks we’d send them. We haven’t talked about really the players that would go into the deal. But obviously, if we were to do a deal with Giannis, you or Jimmy would have to be in the trade just to make it work.’

“But what is said to me in that moment was there’s a chance I may get traded for Giannis because he didn’t rule it out. He didn’t say, ‘We’re not putting you in a deal.’ So, I took that as, all right, It’ll probably be me. … I also walked away from (the deadline) like, ‘Yo, that’s not something I want to keep dealing with. So what is it that I have to do, so that I don’t have to keep dealing with that thing?’”

Dunleavy insinuated during his news conference that nothing was ever close in terms of dealing Green, so that would mean that nothing was close when it came to Antetokounmpo?

That’s when the annual meeting with the media got even more interesting.

“Wait, why is that?” Dunleavy said to a reporter.

Because he would have to be in the deal (to make the salaries work).

“No, he wouldn’t,” Dunleavy said. “You’re putting words in my mouth, so that’s an unbelievable assumption.”

So, was Jimmy on the table?

“No, no, no, we’re not doing that,” Dunleavy said. “I’m not talking about going down the roster talking about who’s in trades and who’s not. We don’t do that.”

The exchange was tense, but it underscored the tension many Warriors’ players have been feeling in the days leading up to the deadline. The only person who felt safe on the roster was Stephen Curry — and Green knew there was a chance he might get moved. Dunleavy repeatedly emphasized that the Warriors believe they have the pieces to make a future deal.

“We’ve got the goods to make deals,” Dunleavy said. “I think the only way we wouldn’t be in the mix is if we gave up assets, young players. All the things you would need to get a great player, we still have all that. I think that’s one of the reasons the KP trade is really good for us, similar to Jimmy last year. We don’t feel like we gave up a ton. And so we still have kind of the firepower to move forward and do more deals, and that’s what we like about that.”

It’s also worth noting that Dunleavy said that while not taking any extra salary back in the moves the Warriors made to acquire Kristaps Porzingis from the Atlanta Hawks and a future second round pick from the Toronto Raptors in exchange for Trayce Jackson-Davis, it wasn’t the only factor the organization considered.

“I think keeping the books clean is a factor,” Dunleavy said. “But at the same time, if a really good player came about, extended out contract wise that we really liked, we would have done that. So, I don’t want to cap it off and say we wouldn’t have.”

What Dunleavy and the Warriors maintain is the hope that they will be able to make one more big swing at a deal in the future and give Curry one more chance at a fifth championship. Dunleavy believes in the roster he has put together and reiterated that the Warriors were on a solid roll before Jimmy Butler tore the ACL in his right knee on Jan. 19. He isn’t sure exactly how things will shake out in the future, but he was strong in his belief that the Warriors’ window for contention hasn’t closed.

“I feel like I answer this every trade cycle,” Dunleavy said. “We’re willing to do whatever it takes to improve this team. Whether it’s young players, first-round picks, we always have been, we always will be. As long as we’re in this win-now window — it was pointed out to me today that over the last calendar year we had the fourth-best record in the NBA — since Jimmy got traded to when he got hurt.

“So despite the idea that we’re not in the mix, we’re fading, all this stuff, the reality is up until Jimmy got hurt we were pretty good and I think we were trending in the right direction. Now we’ve had to pivot a little bit. I think adding Kristaps can help, but this group is kind of what it is.”