If anyone knows Kawhi Leonard, it’s Danny Green. Danny Green and Kawhi Leonard have been through some stuff together. Both players won titles with the San Antonio Spurs and Toronto Raptors.
Green told Dave McMenamin of ESPN he had no clue where Leonard was going to sign, though he was pretty certain it wasn’t going to be the Los Angeles Lakers.
Via ESPN:
“I think all of it was a shock to me,” Green said on a conference call with reporters Thursday. “Except not as much of a shock Kawhi going to L.A. The Clippers, anyway. I didn’t see him coming this route [to the Lakers].
“I feel like he wanted to go his own route. I think it was between them and going back. I think the year that he had and what those fans brought this season and everything it was hard for him to turn it down and leave Toronto. But I knew he wanted to be closer to home.”
Meanwhile, Green is now on the Lakers.
The 10-year veteran with a career 40.4% mark on 3-pointers, said deciding on the Lakers was simple.
“It wasn’t very hard, man,” he said. “LeBron [James] and Anthony Davis are here. Obviously when you’re with a winning team and you’ve won, you want to run it back if it’s possible. But that wasn’t going to happen. And even if it did happen, I don’t think they had room for me there [in Toronto]. So you go to the next-best team you think in the league is and that was here.”
Green, who played alongside James in Cleveland during his rookie season in 2009-10 and later battled him in back-to-back NBA Finals when James played for the Miami Heat, is happy to be back on the four-time MVP’s side.
“I’ve had a chance to play with him, play against him, compete and now compete with him,” Green said. “Kind of come full circle. It’s crazy how some things work out.”
Though he feels fortunate to have landed on the Lakers, Green says that Leonard and George felt they pulled a fast one, too.
Green and Leonard will square off as the Lakers Clippers becomes the NBA’s new biggest rivals.
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