Danilo Gallinari has not played an NBA game since 2024. He has spent a chunk of this month explaining whose fault that is, and he keeps landing on the same name.
After the NBA handed down its ruling in the Clippers salary cap circumvention case, Gallinari said Kawhi Leonard “deserves to pay the full amount.” He went further, claiming Leonard “altered the trajectory of my career.”
Draymond Green heard enough.
Green Did Not Hedge
On his podcast Friday, Green went after the premise directly.
“I think wishing the NBA took $50 million from a player is disgusting,” Green said. “That also wasn’t his first time being traded, so for him to sit and act as if Kawhi Leonard ruined his career, that’s b*******. I think Gallinari would choose Paul George over himself and if you won’t, that’s crazy, that’s ridiculous. Kawhi Leonard does not have the power to trade a player, he can request, but he don’t have the ability to make that trade.”
That last sentence is the one that matters, and it is the part Gallinari keeps skipping.
The Actual Chain Of Events
Gallinari was included in the blockbuster that sent Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and a haul of picks to Oklahoma City for Paul George in 2019. Leonard wanted the Clippers to add a second star. The front office decided which players and picks to send.
Players do not execute trades. Executives do. Leonard requested talent. Lawrence Frank built the package. If Gallinari wants to be angry at someone for putting him in that deal, the names are on the transaction sheet and none of them are Kawhi Leonard.
Green’s point about self-evaluation is the sharper one. Any front office choosing between Gallinari and Paul George in 2019 makes that call in under a second.
The Timing Says Everything
Gallinari did not raise this in 2019, or in 2021, or at any point while he was still getting NBA minutes. He raised it the week the league announced penalties against the Clippers, when piling on carried no cost and guaranteed attention.
The penalties were real and severe. The Clippers were fined $30 million and stripped of five first-round picks. Steve Ballmer was suspended for a year. Leonard was fined $700,000. There is plenty to criticize in that case without inventing a personal grievance on top of it.
Why Green’s Take Lands
Green is not a neutral observer and he is not pretending to be. He is a player defending a player against the idea that another player should be financially gutted by the league office. That instinct is consistent with everything he has ever said about labor.
Gallinari had a 15-year NBA career and made real money. He was traded multiple times, which happens to most players who are not stars. Building a retirement narrative around one superstar who could not sign a trade even if he wanted to is a weak argument, and Green called it what it is.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.