Everyone knows that the Warriors put the full-court press on Kevin Durant last summer when it came time to try and recruit him to Golden State. Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, andDraymond Green met with KD in the Hamptons to try and convince him to sign with the Warriors—and ultimately, their plan to pursue KD as hard as they possibly could worked. KD made the admittedly tough decision to sign with the Warriors on the 4th of July, and the team is now just one win away from winning its second NBA title in three years.
But as it turns out, one Warrior may have started to pursue KD a lot earlier than previously reported. In fact, he may have started recruiting him a little bit too early under NBA rules. According to an ESPN.com report released on Thursday afternoon, Green was so upset after the Warriors lost Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals last June that he sat in his car outside of Oracle Arena and called Warriors general manager Bob Myers to tell him he had to sign KD in the offseason. "It’s on you," Green reportedly told Myers.
And he didn’t stop there. The ESPN.com report indicates Green’s next call was to KD. It’s unclear what Green said to him—he didn’t elaborate while speaking with ESPN.com’s Zach Lowe—but he clearly wasted no time trying to convince KD to come to Golden State. He didn't even pull out of the Oracle Arena parking lot before doing it. "That was my very next call," Green said, before talking about how he now sees the Warriors losing the 2016 NBA Finals as a blessing in disguise. "If we win the championship, I’m like 99 percent sure we don’t get him. There are silver linings to everything."
This isn’t the first time Green has admitted to essentially begging KD to join the Warriors. During an interview with DraftKings last July, he revealed that he sent "too many text messages" to him during the recruitment process. But back then, he denied trying to recruit KD before NBA free agency opened up. So many NBA fans are now wondering if what Green did after Game 7 would constitute as tampering, which is something that’s not allowed in the NBA. Players aren’t technically supposed to recruit free agents-to-be before free agency starts.
There are also plenty of people who are clowning Green for calling KD so soon after the end of Game 7. It’s only added to the disdain some NBA fans feel for Green and the Warriors, who made themselves the prohibitive favorite to win the NBA title this season after landing KD.
Regardless of how many times Green called and texted KD in the days—and possibly weeks?—leading up to free agency, we doubt it was the determining factor for KD when it came time for him to make his decision. But this latest story is clearly leaving a bad taste in a lot of NBA fans’ mouths.
