Klay Thompson’s move to the Dallas Mavericks ended more than a decade of shared history with the Golden State Warriors. Nearly a season later, Draymond Green has offered his perspective on the exit and on how their relationship has evolved since, FadeAwayWorld reports.
In an interview with Rich Kleiman on Boardroom, Green spoke about the bond he and Thompson built and how it felt to see him choose a new path. “Putting the business aside, that’s my brother,” Green said. “We created ourselves together, so our names are synonyms. Like what we’ve all been able to accomplish, there is no ‘remove this guy; it still happens.’ It doesn’t.” He added, “Like me and Klay are the same age. Klay is less than a month older than me, and so we’re related on so many different levels.”
After the 2023–24 season, Thompson signed with the Mavericks, who had just come off an NBA Finals loss led by Luka Doncic. In his first season in Dallas, Thompson posted his lowest numbers since his rookie year, and later that season Doncic was traded.
‘It s**ks’ to move forward without Klay
Green described how the day-to-day dynamic changed after Thompson left. “I actually talked to Klay more today than I did when he played with me,” he said. “When you see somebody every day, you don’t need to talk on the phone. But then a week goes by, you’re like, ‘Yo, I haven’t talked to Klay.’”
He detailed how their conversations have deepened. “And what I will say is Klay will also contact me, which is like I would have never imagined Klay would just be calling me out of the blue. You know, he’ll call me out of the blue and talk about something for an hour and a half, and it’s like, man, I love that’s our relationship.” Green continued, “That something could be bothering him in his life, and he’s going to call me and talk about it for an hour and a half. I’m so grateful that that’s the relationship we’ve built.”
Green did not hide how the on-court split felt. “So to think about the journey without him, it s**ks,” he said. “Like, don’t get me wrong, like I love my teammates and we like we’re on our own journey and he’s on his own journey, but just talking holistically.” He added that their accomplishments spanned more than NBA titles. “For someone that you accomplished so much with over the course of 11 years, and then and by the way, that’s just not an NBA championship. That’s also a gold medal, right? Like, we’re synonymous in so many different ways. To like see that break up, sucked.”
How Green learned Thompson was leaving
Green recalled the call when Thompson told him he was signing with Dallas. “Now, here’s where you put the business side, and the personal also comes into play. When he called, I could see the pain he was in. You know, the last year he was here, it wasn’t Klay. Like, he didn’t have his same joy.. You know, he didn’t have everything that made Klay, Klay. He didn’t have it.”
He added, “And so in sitting back and watching your brother struggle like that, and I don’t mean play, I mean struggle with what he feels about himself, what he feels about the situation. To me, that was hard.” Green said the conversation played out while he was with his family. “And so when he called me and said, ‘Dray, I’m leaving.’ I was in the car with my wife and my kids. And when he first called, I said [to my wife], ‘This Klay, he’s about to tell me he’s leaving,’ and I answered the phone.”
Separately, Green weighed in on a potential Warriors trade pursuit of Lauri Markkanen. According to ESPN’s Anthony Slater, Green told general manager Mike Dunleavy and owner Joe Lacob not to green-light a deal at Utah’s asking price, which included the team’s young core and multiple first-round picks, per NBC Sports. “I’m a big fan of [Markkanen’s] game,” Green told Slater. “But I think if you want to do something so huge, you better be certain that this is the move. You usually don’t win those things against Danny Ainge. I look at history.”
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