Green means go — ready or not
Spurs fan favourite cool with move north: ‘Change can be good’
SAN ANTONIO— The first inkling something was askew came when Danny Green rolled over Wednesday morning at his home in New York and checked his phone.
There were a string of missed calls. The most recent was from Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. So much for sleeping in. “I kind of put two and two together,” Green recalled by phone a day later. “I figured I better call Pop back.”
The news hit Green like a cold shower.
The Spurs were sending disenchanted superstar forward Kawhi Leonard to Toronto for a package highlighted by all-star guard DeMar DeRozan. Green, a Spurs player longer than anyone on the active roster except Manu Ginobili, was part of the deal. He was headed to Toronto, too. A day later, Green could be philosophical about the bombshell.
“Change can be good,” Green said. “I’m not mad at all. I understand the business side of it. I understand what (the Spurs) had to do.”
When DeRozan signed a fiveyear, $138-million contract (all dollars U.S.) to remain in Toronto in July 2016, he did so considering himself a forever Raptor. “I am Toronto,” DeRozan announced to a crowd of crowing Canadians at the time.
Green can relate to a southern fried version of that sentiment. He was not drafted by the Spurs, but he got here as fast as he could, in November 2010. And then he was promptly cut twice.
Green persevered. And he grew up. And he stuck around for eight seasons that made him the second-longest tenured player on the Spurs roster and one of the team’s most visible players in the community. Until Wednesday, when he got swept up in the Leonard-DeRozan trade.
“It was tough, because he has come such a long way,” Popovich said in the wake of Wednesday’s deal. “You know we cut him twice, and over the years he turned into Danny Green.”
The headlines in this week’s swap will feature Leonard and DeRozan, and for good reason. Both are all-star players.
Green has never made an allstar team and never will. But he is more like DeRozan than Leonard in one significant regard: He didn’t want to leave his team.
Earlier this summer, Green eschewed free agency and exercised a $10-million option in his contract to, ostensibly, remain with the Spurs. It did not work out that way.
Leonard played in only nine games last season while battling a quadriceps injury. In June, he asked the Spurs for a trade.
Green harbours no grudge about the perception that he is basically being lugged to Canada as Leonard’s carry-on luggage.
“It was an awkward situation,” Green said. “His decision, I still don’t know exactly what happened.”
Green is eager to get to Canada, with Leonard, and work things out on the court. The pair are scheduled to appear in Toronto on Friday for physicals.
In truth, Green and Leonard have a better chance of getting back to the NBA final with Toronto in the wide-open Eastern Conference than in the West.
“Despite the (Leonard) rumours, basketball is basketball,” Green said. “There’s going to be a magnifying glass on him now. He’s going to be expected to do great things. I’m going to do all I can to help.”
The Spurs still believe the 31year-old Green has something left in the tank. He averaged 8.6 points last season, his most since 2015-16. Though his threepoint shooting dipped to 36.3 per cent, Green remained an integral part of the Spurs’ second-ranked defence.
The Spurs did not include Green in the deal because they wanted to. They included him in the deal — which also netted the Spurs backup centre Jakob Poeltl and a draft pick — because they needed his $10-million salary to make the trade math work under league rules.
“In trades, money has to match to a certain degree and that limits you to certain players that have to be included,” Popovich said. “In this case, that fell upon Danny.”
There is a harsher reading of what happened Wednesday. Green, who never wanted to leave San Antonio, got shipped out of town on account of Leonard, who did. Green prefers not to consider his new NBA lot in those terms. Yes, he would have preferred to remain in San Antonio, where he owns a home he says he plans to keep.
For now, Green aims to make the most of his new opportunity in the Great White North.
“We have a chance to do something special up there,” he said.
In the hours after the trade was announced, Green posted a farewell to Spurs fans on his Instagram page. Accompanying the message was a photo of Green hugging Popovich in the champagne-soaked aftermath of the 2014 championship they won together.
As of Thursday, Green still didn’t fully consider himself a former Spur.
“I’m still rooting for them,” Green said.
“There’s still a big part of me there. We had a hell of a run that I’ll never forget.”