Draymond Green Declines $27.6M Warriors Contract Option, Will Become UFA

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The idea of Draymond Green playing for a different team than the Golden State Warriors seems like a strange one, but that may become a reality after he declined his $27.6 million player option for the 2023-24 season, according to Shams Charania of The Athletic and Stadium.

Green’s contract status has been a major focal point around Golden State at times, especially after Anthony Slater and Marcus Thompson II of The Athletic reported in July 2022 the team was not expected to offer him a maximum extension when he first became eligible.

He made $25.8 million in 2022-23 ahead of this player option, but Slater and Thompson II (h/t Tyler Greenawalt of Yahoo Sports) noted he believed he deserved the maximum extension that would pay him $164.2 million over the next five seasons.

Alas, such a commitment was challenging at best for the Warriors.

Sam Quinn of CBS Sports noted the 2021-22 version was the most expensive team in NBA history at the time at approximately $346 million in combined salary and luxury taxes. It proved to be well worth it when the franchise won its fourth championship in eight years, but it also meant that number would eventually be on the way up.

And it was.

Golden State surely doesn’t win that 2022 title without Andrew Wiggins, who was a two-way star in the playoffs providing key offense and consistently defending the opponent’s top playmakers to take some of the pressure off Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.

Both he and Jordan Poole signed long-term extensions with the team in October 2022, and Thompson is a franchise legend who under contract through just 2023-24.

Yet the report from The Athletic put the spotlight on Green, who is perhaps one of the most difficult players in the league to judge when it comes to contract offers.

On the one hand, he is nowhere near a max-deal player from a purely statistical perspective. His sports career averages of 8.7 points, 7.0 rebounds, 5.6 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.0 blocks per game and is no longer a significant three-point threat after hitting below 30 percent in four straight seasons from 2018-22 even with opposing defenses sagging off him and daring him to shoot.

The Michigan State product is also 33 years old and likely on the back end of his prime.

However, he is also one of the best defensive players of his generation with a Defensive Player of the Year and eight All-Defensive selections on his resume.

And Green is also inherently more valuable to the Warriors than he likely would be to other franchises as the heart and soul of four championships. His chemistry with Curry in particular is impossible to ignore, and his ability to defend much bigger players allows Golden State to play its small-ball style.

Slater and Thompson II cited multiple sources who said Curry would be upset if the team lost out on Green because it wouldn’t pay him enough. Curry also reportedly “sees the Big Three as a package deal” and wants to continue playing with Thompson and Green.

But Green may be playing elsewhere after this decision.