Draymond Green’s decision to decline his 2026-2027 player option has changed the Warriors’ math. By reportedly stepping away from a $27.6 million contract for next season, Green gave Golden State its only route to offer an outside free agent more than the veterans’ minimum, and that opens the door to the $15 million nontaxpayer midlevel exception.
That matters because the Warriors’ interest in Stephen Curry’s potential running mate has moved from wishful thinking to something more concrete. LeBron James appears to be getting closer to choosing a way-below-market-price contract if he wants to join Curry and Green, and Monday morning brought the kind of signal that made the idea feel real enough to track. The question is not whether Golden State can dream; it is whether James would actually accept far less than the Lakers can put in front of him.
Green’s move is the piece that changes the conversation. Without it, the Warriors were limited to the veterans’ minimum for an outside free agent. With it, they can use the $15 million nontaxpayer midlevel exception, which is a meaningful jump in spending power and the main reason James is now being discussed as a fit in the Bay Area. He has long been speculated as Golden State’s first choice if he and the Lakers soured on each other and he wanted to keep playing.
Even so, nothing is locked in. Multiple NBA sources said James’s interest in joining the Warriors has not been explicitly tied to any Anthony Davis move, and the Davis-and-Jimmy Butler scenario remains more hypothetical than a serious set of trade talks between the Wizards and Warriors. That matters because a Davis acquisition would almost certainly take Golden State out of any effort to retain Kristaps Porzingis, which narrows the team’s options even as it gains a cleaner path to James.
The bigger obstacle may be the simplest one. The Lakers can offer James far more money to stay than the Warriors can offer to pull him away for the Bay Area, and there is no indication he has made a final call. Green’s opt-out gave the Warriors a real opening, not a deal. James still has to decide whether the chance to join Curry and Green is worth the pay cut that would make it possible.
