New Lakers guard Danny Green was forced to wait some extra time before deciding where to sign in free agency, with the 32-year-old explaining how difficult of a process that was after leaving the city of Toronto for Los Angeles.
Green, a veteran three-and-D player, wanted to see if teammate Kawhi Leonard would re-sign with Toronto before making his own decision. However, Leonard’s situation took several days to finalize, leaving Green, his agent Joe Branch, and multiple NBA teams out of the loop.
“Those five days [in free agency] seemed like five months,” Green said, as relayed by Tania Ganguli of the Los Angeles Times. “And each day that went by, I checked in with ‘Whi and I’m like, ‘Yo, what’s going on with your meeting?’ ‘I have a meeting tomorrow.’ So, [it was] like, ‘Tomorrow? So I have to wait another day?’ You think a day, it goes by pretty fast but the way it was happening, the way I was talking to him, you would think it was a week. Like, ‘I got to wait another day, dude? Like, come on!’”
“So you go to the next-best team you think in the league is and that was here,” Green said of signing with the Lakers. “Just with the foundation, they only had three players on the roster at the time, but those three players are pretty damn good and you know with those three you can build something special.”
There’s more from the Pacific Division today:
- The Suns quietly made some constructive roster moves this offseason, Greg Moore of the Arizona Republic writes. Phoenix was able to sign free agent point guard Ricky Rubio, re-sign forward Kelly Oubre Jr. and draft the likes of Cameron Johnson and Ty Jerome.
- Avery Bradley will have something to prove in his first season with the Lakers, Kyle Goon of the Orange County Register writes. “My goal is to come here and give myself a chance to show what I can do,” Bradley said. “I feel like it’s been a rough couple of years for me obviously with trades, (never) being in one place a long period of time and then going through that. It’s been hard on me and my family, but I feel like this is going to give me some stability and give me the opportunity to go out there and really show what I can do on both sides of the floor.”
- Kings two-way forward Wenyen Gabriel is starting to show the organization more to his game, as written by Jason Anderson of the Sacramento Bee. Gabriel averaged 13.5 points, 6.8 rebounds and two blocks in four summer league games. “I’m trying to keep it simple here in summer league and show that I can complement the team,” Gabriel said. “So I’m out there trying to show my defensive ability and my switching ability and also my ability to shoot the ball as well.”