Danny Green opens up about trade to Raptors, Kawhi Leonard drama

Danny Green is offering some interesting insights into the saga that resulted in both him and Kawhi Leonard being traded to the Toronto Raptors.

In the debut episode of his new podcast “Inside the Green Room with Danny Green” that aired Tuesday, the veteran swingman opened up about the trade and the Leonard-based drama of the last several months that preceded it.

“It’s part of the business. I’m not mad at at all,” said Green, per HoopsHype. “They could have sent me to worse places. To go from a great team in the West to another good team in the East, you can’t complain about it. Obviously, the fans aren’t happy but we haven’t heard from Kawhi. A lot of these things are just media sources. They think he was a distraction this past year, that he broke the team up, which is not true. Nothing is gonna last forever, regardless if it happened now or later. The team was gonna break up. Eventually, he was gonna go where he wanted to go.

“I don’t think it was due to ill relationships or bad terms with people – regardless of the situation, it happened,” Green continued. “Here’s a lot of details that fans don’t know about, behind the scenes with players, and I don’t even know. I haven’t had the chance to sit down [with Kawhi]. I feel like we have to have that sit-down. I have to talk to him. I need to know what’s going on. ‘Since I’m with you now, I need to know what’s going on. What happened? What’s going on? Where’s your head at? Because we’re in this together now.'”

Green was with the Spurs for the last eight seasons. Seven of those overlapped with Leonard, including their NBA championship-winning season in 2013-14.

The 31-year-old sharpshooter had become something of a Leonard defender over the last several months, and it sounds like that may continue to an extent now that they are headed to Toronto together.