The Los Angeles Lakers traded Danny Green and the No. 28 overall pick in the 2020 NBA Draft to the Oklahoma City Thunder for point guard Dennis Schroder.
This week, a deal was finalized that will send Green, Terrance Ferguson, and Vincent Poirier to the Philadelphia 76ers for Al Horford, a protected 2025 first-round pick, a 2020 second-round pick, and the rights to Vasilije Micic. With his future finally secure, Green took to social media to send a very specific message to the Lakers and their fans: thank you.
“Thank you to my Lakers family, the city of LA, and Lakers fans everywhere for welcoming me to your city and your team. We had one job and we made it happen,” he wrote. “I’ll never forget my time as part of the Lakeshow and I have all of you to thank for it. Special shoutout to my teammates and coaching staff for an unforgettable season … On to the next chapter.”
View this post on Instagram
Green is an 11-year vet who won a championship at the college level with North Carolina, and then did it again in the pros with the San Antonio Spurs in 2014, Toronto Raptors in 2019 and Los Angeles Lakers in 2020. So it stands to reason he would take getting traded like a mature adult.
“I wasn’t shocked,” Green said last week, in regards to the Lakers’ decision to move him.
“I was just seeing where I was going. I was like, OK. Obviously, everybody is getting better. And I knew even when I signed (in LA), the contract that I signed for was going to be hard to maintain, was going to be hard to stabilize, especially with the pieces.”
In 2019 Green inked a two-year, $30 million deal with LA that set him up to get paid $15.4 million in 2020-21. He ultimately averaged 8.0 points, 3.3 rebounds, 1.3 assists, 1.3 steals and 1.8 threes per outing in 2019-20, but didn’t show the sort of consistency that many fans had hoped to see.
“Of course, any time you get a chance to win with a team, you want to try to run it back with that team,” Green continued.
Yikes. https://t.co/FPN0pOZYH6
— Game 7 (@game7__) December 8, 2020
“You make a home with the organization, the team, the players, the roster and within the city. Obviously, it’s up and down with the city and the fans and things like that.
“But I built a home and I loved the area where I was living. Nobody likes to move. I think anybody would want to go back, especially with winning and a great city like that. But at the same time, I’m not mad about it. … I know exactly what I signed up for before I got here.”
At the end of the day, Green has nothing but love for the Lakers.
Imagine breaking into a house thinking you’re gonna find Kylie Jenner and finding a 6’6”, 220-pound NBA star instead.https://t.co/ZRN9T2pjYM
— Game 7 (@game7__) December 5, 2020
“There’s no love lost at all,” he confirmed.
It was something of a known fact last year that the one thing Philly needed most was shooting. The addition of Green should address that in some capacity, particularly if he reverts to being the sort of three-point threat he was prior to joining the Lakers.
If Green finds his shot again, the Sixers could prove to be very dangerous in 2020-21.
Related: Stephen Curry Reveals One Big Goal Before Retirement
Jennifer Withers Hoey is a former Business Development Manager who transitioned to writing about sports. With valuable connections all over the West Coast, she has used those contacts to break some of the most interesting stories pertaining to the Portland Trail Blazers, Oregon Ducks, LA Lakers, LA Clippers, Seattle Supersonics (RIP), and more.
