The Utah Jazz discussed trading Lauri Markkanen to the Golden State Warriors nearly a year and a half ago, but it went nowhere, and soon after Markkanen signed a mega-extension with the Jazz. Today it was revealed why the Warriors didn’t pull the trigger on a Markkanen trade: Draymond Green said they shouldn’t.
Per ESPN’s Anthony SlaterGreen said they shouldn’t acquire Markkanen because of what Utah was asking for him.
“Green even told Dunleavy and controlling owner Joe Lacob the summer before not to greenlight a trade for Lauri Markkanen as the Utah Jazz were asking for all draft picks and young players,” Slater reported.
Green himself told Slater that it had nothing to do with Markkanen, even praising the jazz star. Instead it was something else.
“I’m a big fan of it [Markkanen’s] game,” Green told Slater. “But I think if you’re going to do something that big, you better be sure it is the movement. You don’t normally win those things against Danny Ainge. I look at history.”
At the time, Markkanen had the league’s most team-friendly contract, so it wouldn’t have cost that much contract-wise to make a deal. Green made the point last year that Ainge is someone teams shouldn’t engage in trade talks with, but the fact that he believed in that so strongly that he advised Golden State not to trade for Markkanen because of it is new.
In fact, such a decision is so stupid because Markkanen could have been the final piece for the Warriors to win another title while their window was still open, and it looks even worse in retrospect because the possibility of the team adding both him and Jimmy Butler would have given them confidence in a playoff series against Oklahoma City or Denver.
But because Ainge asks for the ranch, the Warriors decided not Unpleasant exponentially increase their chances of winning banner No. 5 (and possibly more) with Curry and Green? It’s not guaranteed they would have won a title with Markkanen, but they would have been better.
Ainge may get value for his guys, but the teams he trades with shouldn’t regret it
Green isn’t wrong about how demanding Ainge can be, but he is mistaken in thinking that everyone he deals with is being ripped off. That’s happened before, but not recently. Minnesota and Cleveland gave just about everything they could for Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell, respectively.
They didn’t get a title after those transactions, but if asked if they would do those deals again in retrospect, they would say yes without thinking twice. The Warriors would have been more at risk of handing the Jazz gold later than the Timberwolves or Cavaliers, but would they have cared if it meant more titles?
Markkanen proved last night that he is still the same star he was for Utah as he was in his first two years as a Jazzman. Draymond and the Warriors may feel secure about their long-term assets, but they may come to regret it knowing their dynasty could have expanded further in the 2020s if they hadn’t been so afraid to do business with trader Dan…
#real #reason #Warriors #foolishly #passed #Lauri #Markkanen #finally #revealed