Getty Draymond Green #23 of the Golden State Warriors.
There’s much to be thankful for this season when it comes to the Dallas Mavericks. Luka Doncic looks the part of the MVP candidate he was for the second-half of last season. In Christian Wood, the Mavs might have found an excellent pick-and-roll partner for Doncic. And though the team lost Jalen Brunson in free agency, the Mavericks don’t appear much worse off without him.
But let’s be clear: this Mavericks team is (or rather, should) be far from a finished product. Dallas’ most regularly used five-man lineup (Doncic, Spencer Dinwiddie, Dwight Powell, Reggie Bullock, and Dorian Finney-Smith) owns a good-not-great plus-11.1 net rating. With any luck, reinforcements will be on the way as the league edges closer to February’s trade deadline.
And according to Heavy Sports’ Sean Deveney, one such reinforcement might be Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green. Though Green’s usage and scoring are the lowest since his early days in the league, he’s a serviceable big man and assists machine. Per one Western Conference executive who spoke with Deveney, the Mavericks could throw out a package of youngsters should Golden State make Green available.
“Tough to find a deal that would make sense for the Warriors and any deal involving Draymond—they’re not shopping him now anyway—would probably involve multiple teams but the Warriors and just about everybody would have interest in the young guys like Josh Green or (Jaden) Hardy.”
Would the Warriors Have Interest in Dallas’ Youngsters?
If Golden State parts with Green, the team will likely be searching for a win-now replacement. Do Josh Green and Jalen Hardy fit that bill? Hardly. After all, Golden State already has a trio of youngsters in James Wiseman, Moses Moody, and Jonathan Kuminga that the team is struggling to figure out how to play. Adding two more to the mix? Hard pass.
But what if the Warriors wanted to reunite with their former center JaVale McGee? It might make sense to move McGee, considering he’s slowly falling on Dallas’ pecking order, now behind Dwight Powell and Christian Wood for center minutes. And recently, McGee expressed confusion over that demotion.
Canon Curry was about to give Draymond a taste of his own medicine 😭
“I don’t really have an understanding of when my minutes will come, but I’m a professional, so whatever my team feels we need to win.”
In all likelihood, the Mavericks would have to loop in a third team just to make the salaries match and ensure Golden State gets what it deems fair value. Could the Mavs call up fellow Lone Star State club San Antonio to see if the Spurs could re-route Jakob Poetl to San Fran? San Antonio, who most predicted in preseason to be on a crash course with French phenom Victor Wembanyama, might be more interested in Dallas’ younger assets anyway.
Regardless, it isn’t the first time Green has been linked to Dallas this year.
Green Linked to Mavericks, Lakers Over Summer
Back in September, Deveney spoke with another source who mused about potential landing spots for Green.
“If he gets a big offer from Detroit as one example or maybe Dallas or the Lakers, somewhere he would like to play? He is not going to be shy about leaving. He understands this business,” the executive told Deveney.
Given Dallas’ already tight budget, the team would necessarily need to move someone like McGee ($5 million), Davis Bertans ($16 million), or Tim Hardaway, Jr. ($19.6 million).