Warriors Almost Traded Draymond Green To Western Conference Rival

Originally posted on Athlon Sports | By Ashish Mathur | Last updated May 17, 2025 4:11 PM ET

Draymond Green has spent his entire career with the Golden State Warriors. He has helped the franchise reach six NBA Finals and win four championships in 2015, 2017, 2018 and 2022.

Green and Steph Curry have talked about wanting to spend their entire careers with the Warriors, who lost to the Minnesota Timberwolves in the second round of the 2025 playoffs in five games. All signs point toward Curry and Green retiring with Golden State.

However, according to Logan Murdock of The Ringer, the Warriors almost traded Green to a Western Conference rival a few years ago in a blockbuster deal.

Mudock revealed on The Zach Lowe podcast that Golden State came close to trading Green to the Memphis Grizzlies.

"I know that there was a deal in place to send Draymond to Memphis and the return on that would have been interesting," Murdock said. "It’s so interesting that Steven Adams was the catalyst to almost beating them in the first round because in that trade, Steven Adams would have come back to Golden State.

"Along with Dillon Brooks, I heard that as well. Tyus Jones and a couple other people. But the reason why that deal fell through is because Tyus Jones got rerouted to Washington and it no longer made the deal work. That’s something they wanted. They really wanted a backup point guard."

Brooks and Adams play for the Houston Rockets now, while Jones plays for the Phoenix Suns.

The Warriors beat the Rockets in the first round of this year's playoffs in seven games.

Golden State made a massive trade this year, acquiring Jimmy Butler from the Miami Heat. Curry, Butler and Green are expected to be the team's "Big 3" again next season.

This article first appeared on Athlon Sports and was syndicated with permission.

More must-reads: