Written by Mike Chiari at Bleacher Report.com
The Golden State Warriors’ recruiting efforts landed them Kevin Durant this offseason, but Dubs All-Star forward Draymond Green admitted on Conan that he may have taken his efforts a bit too far.
As seen in the following clip, Green discussed the lengths he went to in order to help Golden State pry Durant away from the Oklahoma City Thunder:
Dan Feldman of Pro Basketball Talk provided a partial transcript:
I recruited KD really, really hard. And it was like the equivalent of a college coach trying to get a top-five recruit—although I would’ve broke every NCAA rule there was, because I called him a million times. I text him a million and one times. And I tried to show up wherever he was every chance I got.
When I found out he was coming, I came back to my senses, and I said, “I wonder if he respects me as a man now, the way I just blew his phone up.” He had to have a girlfriend who got on his nerves worse than that before. So, I questioned myself.
Green’s questions may have been answered in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, as he and Durant formed a winning combination as part of the gold medal-winning United States men’s basketball team at the 2016 Summer Olympics.
While Green did what he had to do in order to help attract one of theNBA’s top players, Adrian Wojnarowski reported on The Vertical Pod with Woj (h/t Ryan Phillips of The Big Lead) that Russell Westbrook and some of Durant’s other former Thunder teammates were unhappy that he was so friendly with Green.
Retrospect suggests that Westbrook and Co. had reason to be concerned, as Durant made what was arguably already the NBA’s most talented team potentially even more dominant.
The fact that Green and Durant corresponded so often prior to the free-agent deal getting done could allow KD to mesh with the team even more quickly than signees usually do—which is a scary thought for the league’s 29 other teams.
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