Kawhi Leonard is the star of the Toronto Raptors, San Antonio Spurs trade. However, the Raptors are receiving another talented player in Danny Green as well. When Adrian Wojornowski initially reported the deal sending Kawhi Leonard to the Toronto Raptors for DeMar DeRozan, the specifics were not still unknown. We knew San Antonio would need to send out additionally salary in order to make the deal work, however, it was unclear if the salary Toronto received would be of any use. As It turns out, Toronto not only received San Antonio’s star small forward, but their starting shooting guard as well. Danny Green is a 31-year old, nine-year veteran who has started the last 6.5 seasons for the Spurs. An experienced college player, Green spent four seasons at the University of North Carolina before declaring for the NBA. Even during his senior season, Green never dominated in college. In his final year in tar-heel blue, he was the fourth best player of a National Championship team. (Ty Lawson, Tyler Hansbrough, and Wayne Ellington were the other three incase you were wondering). After his National Championship season, Green was selected with the 46th pick in the 2009 draft by the Cleveland Cavaliers. Green was selected mostly due to his championship pedigree and three-point shooting capabilities, his defensive capabilities largely remained a mystery at that time. After playing just one season and 20 games for the Cavaliers, Green was cut. Green’s offensive skill-set was very limited and his lack of elite athleticism theoretically capped his defensive upside. But like so many times before, the Spurs found treasure in someone else’s trash. Coach Gregg Popovich played to Green’s strengths, not his weaknesses, and in under two seasons Green went from the waiver wire to a starter on a 50-win team. Since that time Green has been a consistent cog in the San Antonio machine, providing the Spurs with the same steady play for six-plus seasons. But what did he provide to the Spurs, and what will he be providing to the Toronto Raptors?<doc-sep>The Toronto Raptors‘ Kawhi Leonard era will officially begin this week, when the elusive star is set to make his first appearance in his new city for team physicals. But the generational phenom, who’s been the talk of the NBA for the past 48 hours, won’t come alone. The deal that sent DeMar DeRozan and Jakob Poeltl to Texas brings in Leonard and longtime Spur Danny Green, one of the longest-tenured names on San Antonio’s roster up until Wednesday’s blockbuster. Green’s near-decade-long commitment to the Spurs is well-established, perhaps rivalling even DeRozan’s love of Toronto. Undrafted, cut twice, the veteran eventually found his way, becoming a Spurs staple. Just last month, Green passed up the chance to test free agency, exercising his $10-million option to stay in San Antonio. Now that’s simply a footnote on his career timeline, with a significant change upcoming. But the 31-year-old appears to harbour no ill will towards the organization he fought to cling to. “Change can be good,” Green said Thursday to the San Antonio Express-News‘ Jeff McDonald. “I’m not mad at all. I understand the business side of it. I understand what (the Spurs) had to do.” For their part, it seems San Antonio wasn’t exactly thrilled to part with Green. “It was tough, because he has come such a long way. You know, we cut him twice, and over the years he turned into Danny Green,” head coach Gregg Popovich said of the deal. “In trades, money has to match to a certain degree and that limits you to certain players that have to be included. In this case, that fell upon Danny.” There’s bound to be a bit of tension for the San Antonio duo heading north together, with the relationship between Leonard and the Spurs — initially a promising match — descending into enough toxicity to force the organization to ship their all-world star out of town. And Green along with him, just to make the numbers work. Green said he’s still not exactly clear on how it got to this point. “It was an awkward situation,” he said. “His decision, I still don’t know exactly what happened.” Regardless, he’s confident Leonard and the Raptors can find success together in this next chapter of both parties’ history. “Despite the (Leonard) rumours, basketball is basketball,” Green told McDonald. “There’s going to be a magnifying glass on him now. He’s going to be expected to do great things. I’m going to do all I can to help. “We have a chance to do something special up there.”<doc-sep>Lost amidst the whirlwind of emotions enkindled by the departure of DeMar DeRozan for Kawhi Leonard, another player has arrived in Toronto looking to prove his services worthy of a team now zeroed in on carving a pathway to The Finals. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise that Danny Green is a perfect fit for the Raptors’ system. He just came from San Antonio, after all, a place where passing, off-ball movement, and shot selection are prioritized—all things that new Raps head coach Nick Nurse demanded more of when the team overturned their offensive play-style last season. There is concern, however, over what Green can provide on that end of the floor. Certainly, scoring is not his most appealing attribute (we’ll get to the defense later), emphasized by the fact that last season he shot just 38.7 per cent from the field and is a career 41.8 per cent shooter, but the part of his offensive game that is still lethal is bolstered by the system he’s walking into. Green is a great three-point shooter (36.3 per cent in 2017–18), and while the Spurs offense does contain a lot of movement and passing (an NBA marksman’s best friends), the personnel on the roster last season dictated that they spend more time looking to get shots at the rim or shots in the midrange, especially with LaMarcus Aldridge being their go-to player. In fact, San Antonio ranked 27th in the league in three-point attempts per game and 26th in three-point percentage last season, while they were fifth in the league in two-point attempts (although just 20th in two-point percentage). Toronto, on the other hand, worried less about their personnel as they shifted their offensive system and wound up ranking third in three-point attempts and 18th in three-point percentage. They shied away from taking two-point shots that weren’t right at the hoop (save for DeRozan, whose game denoted he still take midrange looks), and chose to ride or die via the ability of many unproven shooters to make triples, generating open look after open look and hoping that they would fall. For a shooter like Green, he would be hard pressed to find himself a better situation. Despite his general offensive woes last season and opponents knowing to stick to him on the perimeter as one of the Spurs’ only viable shooting threats, his three-point shooting was actually still very good. Out of the 4.6 threes Green shot in 2017–18, 3.9 of them came from catch-and-shoot scenarios. On those looks, he made 37.6 per cent of his attempts, skirting around the perimeter until someone would find him or making himself known by diving into the paint and then retreating back out in order to give himself separation. It is a testament to the constant movement of Green and the Spurs’ system that even with teams recognizing his three-point prowess, Green still managed to take the majority of his triples either open (1.5 attempts per game) or wide-open (2.4 attempts per game), shooting 34.3 per cent and a red-hot 39.8 per cent on those looks, respectively—looks he will find even easier to come by in Toronto. Green is also absolutely cash from the corners, having shot 39 per cent from the left and a blistering 49.1 per cent from the right last season. He will often begin possessions by slipping to the strong side corner, where he’s evidently comfortable, and figure things out from there as the play develops, sometimes making like he’s about to leave his spot just to get his defender moving before then back-pedalling to the corner for an open look. Most of Green’s threes, however, came above the break, where he shot 32.3 per cent. Similar to the Raptors’ own C.J. Miles, he will rise up in transition and semi-transition if he has the opportunity, or he will float about the arc to keep himself moving and in position for any kick-out passes. While the three-point marksmanship is certain to be a boon for Toronto, it’s the other areas of Green’s offensive repertoire that are lacking. He’s not a particularly strong finisher when driving to the basket (54.6 per cent from 0–3 feet in 2017–18)—in fact, he shot a mere 36.8 per cent off of any shots that came out of drives last season. The Raptors will simply have to grin and bear that aspect of Green’s game, since getting to the rim, if not finding an open three, is an inherent part of the game plan. But what they can change is what the wing does between the iron and the arc. Green isn’t exactly a ball-stopper (he won’t elect to take poor shots when covered), but if he’s open he will fire away from no matter where he is on the floor. This includes anything from 3–16 feet and, even if he’s unguarded (39.2 per cent on overall open looks; 40 per cent on overall wide-open looks), unfortunately results in very few makes simply because they are shots he’s never been adept at making. Thankfully, these are also the kinds of shots that the Raptors attempted to wean out of the team last season to resounding success. At the moment, Green takes 57 per cent of his shot attempts from deep. Compare that to Miles, whose three-pointers accounted for 75.8 per cent of his looks last season. If Toronto can manage to elicit a similar result from Green, they will essentially have a more potent version of what Miles is able to provide thanks to the former’s stalwart defense. Ah yes, the defense. A prototypical “3&D” wing, Green is perhaps best known for the latter part of that moniker. He’s gritty and a hustler, not afraid to mix things up or take on a challenge. Last season, he ranked fifth (1.16) in the league amongst shooting guards in defensive real plus-minus, and he accumulated an impressive defensive player impact plus-minus of 1.19. He was also a key part of the Spurs’ most used lineup (Dejounte Murray-Patty Mills-Green-Kyle Anderson-Aldridge) that boasted a defensive rating of 94.3.<doc-sep>Masai Ujiri and the Toronto Raptors are taking a leap. Earlier this week, the franchise made the most dramatic acquisition in team history, sending DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl, and a first-round pick to the San Antonio Spurs for Kawhi Leonard and Danny Green. Holly MacKenzie recapped the specifics on Wednedsday, and on Friday, Ujiri, the team’s president, met with media on the practice court of Scotiabank Arena to discuss the trade. The situation still requires some time for clarity. His message does not. Despite all of the risks and uncertainty associated with the move, Ujiri weighed them and found that this opportunity – the chance to land an elite talent, to better position the Raptors for their first-ever run to the NBA Finals – was worthwhile. In that he was steadfast, and his confidence in the organization’s ability to work through some of the muddier aspects of Leonard’s departure from San Antonio and the quadriceps injury that cost him most of his 2017-18 season is unbreached. In his eyes, the Raptors have been building to something over the last five seasons, and acquiring Leonard and Green, even with risk and cost, furthers that goal. The cost was high, to be clear. In trading away DeRozan, the Raptors have lost the previous face of the franchise, their all-time leading scorer, and their longest-tenured player ever. It was not easy, and a good portion of Ujiri’s press conference was dedicated to appreciation for DeRozan (as well as an apology for miscommunication in the process). “First off, I want to not only apologize to DeMar DeRozan for maybe a gap of miscommunication but also to acknowledge him and what he’s done with the Raptors, for this city, for this country. There is no better. We appreciate him, I promise you that we’re going to celebrate him in the best possible way we can as long as I’m here,” he said, later also thanking Poeltl. “DeMar is the greatest player that’s played, for now, for Toronto, at least for what he’s done here.” The human side was difficult. On the basketball side, the Raptors feel they’ve come away with a win here. Leonard is the type of talent who doesn’t hit the unrestricted free agent market without having a destination already in mind, who isn’t acquirable in the draft without some painful years and good fortune, and the ilk of who rarely, if ever, becomes available on the trade market for a reasonable price. He would not have been available to the Raptors were there not risks and costs associated with him, and they’ve deemed him the type of player who warrants those. “All I'll say is without all this medical drama that there is, we have no chance of talking to a player like that. Zero. You have no chance,” Ujiri said. “He would be signed to a new (contract), and we wouldn't have a chance to get him. This is why we have a chance, this was the risk that we are taking. We've looked at some of the medicals as soon as the deal was done and the rest will depend on the physical that will be done shortly.” It’s a dramatic turn, one that sends out the longest-serving Raptor ever and leaves Kyle Lowry and Jonas Valanciunas as the team’s elder statesmen on the basketball side. For the last half-decade, the Raptors have undergone tweaks and changes, but DeRozan, Lowry, Valanciunas, and Dwane Casey were at least constants amid the changing tides. That will no longer be the case, with Nick Nurse installed as the new head coach, a key piece of the vaunted Bench Mob gone, and a new star in place of an old star. That is not to say the run to this point has not been a good one, because it has. It’s been the most successful five-year stretch in franchise history, and it’s led to some of the best playoff moments and longest postseason runs. The Raptors, though, have come short of their ultimate goal on several occasions, with similar endings to their playoff runs in three of the last four years. That necessitates a more fundamental change at some point, lest the stated goal of competing for a championship sound less and less earnest with each attempt. “We’ve been doing this for how many years? You can’t keep doing the same thing over and over again and when you get a chance to get a top-five player – which isn’t very often – I think you have to jump on it. I think we’ve given a chance to his team, we tried to build it up as much as we can but at this point, we got to this level, this opportunity came in front of us and we had to jump on it,” Ujiri said. “Our team is just not at that level and we keep pounding on the same thing over and over again. I think if we look at ourselves honestly everybody knows that we had to do something different, even if it wasn't this. We had to figure out something different. I take responsibility for that.” This is something different. In Green, the Raptors have landed a player who thrives in his role as a versatile 3-and-D wing. Teammates are fond of him, and his difficult path to secure his spot in the NBA will mesh well with a locker room full of self-made and once under-appreciated players. And in Leonard, the Raptors have acquired a legitimate Most Valuable Player candidate, when healthy. Prior to his quad injury, Leonard had become the league’s youngest Finals MVP, won an NBA Championship, made a pair of All-Star games, won a pair of Defensive Player of the Year awards, made All-NBA First Team twice, and made four All-Defensive teams. In 2015-16, he was the runner up in the MVP voting. In 2016-17, he placed third. Either would be the highest any Raptor has ever finished, and Leonard may have the claim to be the best player in the Eastern Conference when at 100 percent.<doc-sep>
Kawhi Leonard and DeMar DeRozan headlined the blockbuster trade between the San Antonio Spurs and Toronto Raptors but there was another significant piece involved in the deal that seems to have been overlooked. Danny Green will be joining Leonard in Toronto and it ends his eight-year association with the Spurs. The shooting guard could've hit free agency this summer but instead, he exercised the player option on his contract and chose to continue his career in San Antonio. But the franchise had other ideas and had to include him in the deal to finally end the long-running Kawhi saga. End of an era Though they may be relieved to have finally put this to bed, letting go of Green wasn't something they did easily. Gregg Popovich described just how hard it was to part ways with the veteran. “It was tough, because he has come such a long way,” Popovich said, per Jeff McDonald of the San Antonio-Express-News. “You know we cut him twice, and over the years he turned into Danny Green.” After being drafted by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2009, the 31-year-old didn't last long there as he was waived just a year later. He was picked up by the Spurs in 2010 and he eventually went on to forge a solid NBA career with the Texas-based franchise. Green played a major role in their 2014 championship win as he shot lights out from three-point range throughout the playoffs. Last season, he was the second-longest tenured player on the team's roster after Manu Ginobili. The news initially hit him hard but he quickly came round to the idea and why the team made the decision to offload him. “Change can be good,” Green said. “I’m not mad at all. I understand the business side of it. I understand what (the Spurs) had to do.” Popovich explained that they had little choice but to include the swingman in the deal to make it work financially for both teams. “In trades, money has to match to a certain degree and that limits you to certain players that have to be included,” Popovich said. “In this case, that fell upon Danny.” But the All-Defensive guard has been sent to a team that may have a better chance of making it to the finals than the Spurs next season. The two new additions make the Raptors serious contenders to win the east and Green is excited about what they can achieve in Canada. “We have a chance to do something special up there,” he said. It was hard for Popovich to let his trusted three-point marksman go but he may have given him a better opportunity to be successful north of the border. CLICK HERE to listen to Episode Two of the new GiveMeSport NBA podcast, featuring New York Times senior writer Marc Stein. Subscribe for all future episodes. News Now - Sport News