Draymond Green: ‘I want to be a Warrior for the rest of my life’

With the Golden State Warriors’ season over after a six-game series loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, questions have naturally risen concerning some of their key pieces.

Jordan Poole’s four-year $128 million contract extension is taking effect at the start of next season. General Manager Bob Myers’ contract is set to expire.

But everyone is most probably waiting for Draymond Green’s decision to opt in or out of his $27 million player option for next year. If he does decide to opt out, he’ll become an unrestricted free agent.

Green’s value to the team extends beyond the stats. His value as a playmaking hub has helped the likes of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson perform their duties on offense. But it’s his defensive acumen that is of greater value to this franchise.

It can be argued that if Curry is this franchise’s offensive system, Green is the keystone to their entire defensive machinery. Without him, their entire defensive infrastructure falls apart.

Which makes it paramount that the Warriors do everything in their power to retain Green’s services for the foreseeable future.

According to a report by Anthony Slater and Shams Charania of The Athletic, the Warriors are ready to offer Green a multi-year deal — whether that comes in the form of an extension after opting in or an entirely new deal in free agency — in order to keep him.

For his part, Green has stated that he wants to continue be a part of the organization that drafted him for the rest of his career.

“I want to be a Warrior for the rest of my life,” Green said after Game 6. “I want to ride out with the same dudes I rode in with.”

While encouraging, that quote from Green is in no way a one-hundred-percent guarantee that he will be returning. Things can change in the uncertain environment that is the off-season, and the Warriors will have plenty of problems to address, including finding ways of re-tooling a roster that wasn’t fit to support its main cast, unlike the 2022 championship season where the likes of Otto Porter Jr., Gary Payton II, and Nemanja Bjelica fit the roster to a tee.

But if you want another piece of reassurance that Green could be staying, here’s another quote from him: