After blowing a 3-1 NBA Finals lead last season, Warriors All-Star Draymond Green didn't just get mad: he took action.
According to a report from ESPN, Green sat in the parking lot of Oracle Arena after his team's Game 7 loss in 2016 and first made a phone call to GM Bob Myers to urge him to sign Kevin Durant in free agency, then made another call to Durant himself.
Just two weeks later, Kevin Durant infamously announced he would sign with the Warriors instead of a handful of suitors, declining to return to the Oklahoma City Thunder team that had Golden State on the ropes before blowing a 3-1 lead in the Western Conference Finals.
Despite a devastating defeat for Draymond's Warriors in last year's Finals, he says if there was a bright side, it was that they landed one of the best players in the NBA. (No kidding, really?)
"I look at it as we lost the Finals, but we ended up with KD," Green said. "That's a helluva consolation prize."
Durant signed with the Warriors on a two-year max deal with a player option in year two, and instantly made Golden State the NBA's favorite to win the 2017 title in the process.
As we've seen unfold over the past week, Durant's decision shifted the power structure of the NBA entirely. That might not have happened if the 2016 Finals played out differently.
"If we win the championship, I'm like 99 percent sure we don't get him," Green said. "There are silver linings to everything."
