Draymond Green shows his emotion during Game 7 of the 2016 NBA Finals versus the Cleveland Cavaliers. (Photo : Getty Images/Ronald Martinez)
On Dec. 14, it was announced that the National Basketball Association, and the National Basketball Players' Association have agreed to a tentative seven-year Collective Bargaining Agreement Deal. It gained praises from players and fans alike mainly because it is a step in the right direction, potentially closing the possibility on another lockout in 2017.
But not everyone is pleased. Shortly after the announcement, Golden State Warriors' forward Draymond Green took to Twitter to express his disappointment on the new CBA deal.
That's a heartbreaker
— Draymond Green (@Money23Green) December 15, 2016
"As a superstar in this league, you'll be taken care of, so it's not more so about us, it's more so about the guys who aren't on our level," ESPN quoted Green as saying. "When I look at my career, I didn't expect to be at this level I'm at now, so I kind of identify more with those guys that have not made it to this level that I've been fortunate enough to make it to."
Green made it clear that he wants the new CBA agreement to close the gap between the superstars and the role players. Although everyone will gain higher salaries when the agreement is approved, he believes that it should focus more on the guys who are not franchise players.
One of Green's main points is to make sure that the deal would give more to the players who are making minimum salaries. He explained that it was not even necessarily that it was a higher minimum salary and there could be a different structure to have not as many minimum players.
For Green, there is like a maximum, a minimum and a couple of in-betweens. There also could be different structures to make the minimum players make more and not be a minimum player, the veteran added.
Before Green became a well-known superstar for the Warriors, he started his career as one of the guys who come off the bench and provide quality minutes when the starters are resting. This is the reason why he wants the representatives of NBA and NBPA to explore more details on how to be of better help to the guys who are not really 'Superstars' in the league.
Right now, the NBA and NBPA are still under the 10-year CBA deal which was signed in 2011. But on Thursday, the deadline for both sides to opt out of the said deal was extended so they could explore additional possibilities to make a better structure for the new agreement.
Over the last couple of months, the league and the players' union had been quiet in terms of discussing the CBA agreement, and expect that to be the same as they hope to finally seal the deal in the next couple of months.
Green, who hopes that the role players would be given more consideration as the talks continue, is getting a 10.6 ppg, according to Yahoo Sports. The following video features the NBA player:
