Draymond Green: 2019 ACL Injury May Have Kept Klay Thompson With Warriors Longer

What Draymond Green Actually Said About Klay Thompson Leaving Warriors

Draymond Green stirred up a fresh wave of Warriors nostalgia this week, saying it was "highly likely" Klay Thompson would have left Golden State after the 2019 playoffs to chase a bigger role elsewhere. Green went further, estimating there was a "90 percent chance" Thompson would have tested unrestricted free agency that summer had things gone differently.

It's worth being clear about what this is and isn't. Green isn't breaking news about a front-office decision or revealing some hidden front-office memo this is a former teammate's personal read on how close Thompson came to walking away from the dynasty he helped build. Thompson was set to hit free agency in the summer of 2019, and Green's comments frame that offseason as a real inflection point, not a hypothetical dreamed up years later.

How the 2019 ACL Tear Derailed Klay Thompson's Timeline

The injury that changed everything happened in Game 6 of the 2019 NBA Finals on June 13, when Thompson landed awkwardly on a dunk attempt and was fouled by Danny Green. An MRI that night confirmed a torn left ACL. The Raptors closed out the series 4-2 that night, ending the Warriors' run and, as it turned out, ending Thompson's shot at testing the open market that summer while healthy.

The rehab that followed kept him out of the entire 2019-20 season. Then, just as he was closing in on a return, Thompson suffered a separate Achilles injury in November 2020  a gut punch that came roughly 470 days after his ACL tear, according to ESPN reporting on his recovery timeline at the time. Two major injuries back-to-back meant Thompson didn't play a competitive NBA game for more than two full years, a stretch that erased the leverage and market curiosity he would have carried into a free-agency decision in his prime.

Why Green Thinks Thompson Could Have Been a No. 1 Option

Green's case for Thompson leans heavily on the résumé: four NBA championships (2015, 2017, 2018, 2022) and five All-Star selections, all built alongside Stephen Curry over 13 seasons in Golden State. He also earned two All-NBA Third Team nods and an All-Defensive Second Team selection along the way a body of work Green argues gets undervalued because Thompson always played the second or third star role next to Curry and Green himself.

Green called the notion that Thompson couldn't lead his own team "blasphemous," drawing a comparison to Reggie Miller, another elite shooter who thrived as a franchise's primary option. That comparison is the crux of his argument — not that Thompson was guaranteed to be a No. 1 option somewhere, but that the injury took away the one chance he had to actually find out. It's a distinction that matters: Green is making a case for what could have been, not rewriting what already happened.

• 4x NBA champion (2015, 2017, 2018, 2022)
• 5x NBA All-Star
• 2x All-NBA Third Team
• 1x All-Defensive Second Team
• 13 seasons with Golden State

What This Means Now That Thompson Has Already Left Golden State

Here's where fans need to separate the hypothetical from the headline: this isn't a rumor about a new move. Thompson's Warriors chapter is already closed, and he's currently on the Miami Heat after clearing waivers following a buyout with Dallas, on a reported two-year, $11.5 million contract that includes a second-year player option and a 15% trade kicker.

Green's comments are a look backward at a fork in the road from 2019, not a preview of anything brewing in Miami. There's no indication he's hinting at fresh trade chatter or a role change for Thompson with the Heat just a teammate's honest assessment of how differently things might have gone if that Game 6 landing had gone a little cleaner.

One Thing to Watch

Whether Thompson ever gets meaningful lead-role minutes in Miami won't answer Green's what-if — but it will be the closest thing fans get to a real-time test of the theory he just floated.