Draymond vents about new CBA: ‘It's not about me'

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OAKLAND – Draymond Green spent about 15 minutes Thursday expressing displeasure with the NBA’s new collective bargaining agreement and advocating for a more equitable distribution of revenue to better benefit those at the lower end of the league’s salary structure.

Which is where Green, a second-round draft pick, could be found prior to July 2015, when the Warriors power forward signed a five-year contract worth $82 million.

“When I look at my career, I didn’t expect to be at his level I’m at,” Green said after. “I identify more with those guys that have not made it to the level that I’ve been fortunate enough to make it to. So when I think of contract negotiations and the CBA, I think of them and how can we help them? How can we help the guys that aren’t making as much, make more?”

Though Stephen Curry and Andre Iguodala are members of the National Basketball Players Association executive committee, neither was available Thursday morning. Green, the Warriors’ NBPA representative, had plenty to say about the tentative deal, announced jointly Wednesday night by the NBA and the NBPA.

Conceding that he still is reading through the information he received Wednesday night, Green waved off discussing the basketball-related income (BRI) split between owners and players. His concern is less about player-owner than player-player.

“It’s not about me,” he said. “I am by no means mad about my salary. I’m blessed. I get to play the game that I love for a living, and make a lot of money doing it. So to sit here and act like I’m mad at what I make is completely off . . . it’s not about me that I’m mad about.

“When I look at these things, I look at a guy like an Ian Clark or James Michael McAdoo.”

Clark and McAdoo, Warriors reserves, are making roughly $1 million each this season. That’s fairly typical of what most teams pay younger backup players, as All-Star talents generally make north of $15 million per season.

“It’s not about me being mad for me,” Green said. “It’s about me being frustrated for other guys. When we go in these negotiations, guys are overlooked. It’s more about helping these guys.”

The average salary is expected to nearly double, from $5 million to around $9 million. Also to be boosted are minimum-salary deals, rookie-scale contracts and some free-agent exceptions, including the midlevel, also will bump upward.

In addition, roster sizes reportedly will go from 15 to 17, with two spots reserved for players on “two-way” deals, allowing an NBA-level salary and a D-League salary, based on the players status at a given time.

Still, it needs to be better, according to Green.

“I’ll be OK,” Green said. “It’s about helping everybody else. That’s what means more to me than anything. How do you help the next guy up? How do you help put someone else in a better situation? And when you’re in position to do that, you use your voice. You use your platform to help.”

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