Draymond Green reacts to Danilo Gallinari's Kawhi Leonard comments — and misses the point

The Kawhi Leonard controversy has been all over the newsstands this offseason. The resolution of that eventful saga had the Los Angeles Clippers bearing the brunt, but the superstar ultimately came out of it unscathed aside from a very manageable fine. In fact, he even has some of his contemporaries coming to his defense, most notable of which is Draymond Green.

The Warriors star even defended Kawhi on a different front. Former NBA veteran Danilo Gallinari, who played for the Clippers in the past, made a recent statement about Leonard apparently being the force behind him getting shipped out of L.A. for Paul George, which supposedly kickstarted the downward trend of his career.

Green then dished out an unsolicited criticism of Gallinari, ultimately saying that swapping him out for George was a no-brainer and that Leonard had no power to trade a fellow player.

Well, talk about being disingenuous, huh.

Draymond Green completely missed the point about Kawhi Leonard

It is baffling that Green is so resolute in saying that Kawhi had no power to trade Gallinari at that juncture. Obviously, taking Gallinari's statement literally would be absurd. Leonard indeed does not have the ability to make a trade. What he had, however, is profound influence over the Clippers.

At that time, Kawhi chose the Clippers as they were the only team to yield to his desires, one of which included striking a deal for George. Had Leonard not made that demand, L.A. would not have been too eager about trading for the then-Thunder star, which ended up costing it a historic amount of assets.

It is elementary that Leonard was the driving force behind the Clippers shipping out Gallinari (and Shai Gilgeous-Alexander) for George. With his remark, it almost seems like Green is acting like a partisan speaker. 

If there is anything that this summer established, it is that Kawhi Leonard had too robust of an influence over the way the Clippers operated. Draymond Green denying that is just flat-out dishonest of him.