70sFan wrote:trex_8063 wrote:I'd put the following post-merger PF peaks definitely ahead of him:
Duncan
KG
Giannis
Dirk
Barkley
Malone
AD
I'd maybe put McHale ahead too.
I think that's about it for me. '14 Kevin Love is a good mention, though (I'd put him in the "maybe, but probably not" category; close though).
I'm lower on peak Draymond than most here, simply because I think he has next to zero floor-raising capacity. Yeah, he was an integral lynchpin piece on a team already boasting a lot of talent and GOAT-level shooting in particular. But how often can a player expect to find himself in that circumstance? 15% of the time? Less?
Put him on a team with putrid talent, and he's able to lift that cast to.......still putrid. All things being equal, a player can expect to find himself in that type of circumstance more or less just as often as the former. He's a peculiar specimen in that his impact seems to increase with the amount of talent surrounding him (some superstars are just the opposite: their impact gets more and more diluted the more talent you put around them).
Draymond would have a massive defensive impact on any team regadless of his teammates. I don't agree that he has no floor-raising capacity, because he'd improve even below average defensive team big time.
Certainly improves it; usually big-time, I suppose. Though perhaps not always. I note that in '20 [Draymond active for 43 of 65 games], the Warriors were a -3.2 rDRTG (26th in the league). While it's true they were significantly worse without him [-5.0 rDRTG, which would have been dead-last], they were still a -1.6 rDRTG [would have tied for 20th]
with him on the court.
Meanwhile, his offensive imprint appears to tank without talent around him. Again, on that '20 team, they were dead-last in the league offensively, but even marginally worse with him: they were still worst in the league without him, but
with him their offense was -1.2
to the 29th-rated offense (-3.0 to the 24th-rated offense).......they were very nearly in a league of their own in terms of how bad they were on offense with Draymond on the court. fwiw, this team was dead-last in record (4 fewer wins than the team in 29th), MOV, and SRS.
This is counter to most "star players", because most "stars" are stars at least in part due to their offensive game, their ability to take on some offensive load and carry a team. Consequently, they tend to have huge offensive lift on teams that otherwise cannot exist without them (like this '20 Warriors supporting cast, who were quite obviously desperate for SOMEONE to provide a lift on that end).
Most "stars" can lift such a squad substantially, depending on how much load they can carry individually, in part because there's no where to go but up......(think Jokic in recent years, or Kevin Garnett on some of those awful supporting casts in Minny: heck, for all the criticism his offense is given by detractors, he's got THREE seasons where his
offensive on/off is > +10 [peaking at +15.1.....peak Steve Nash territory]).
If you start with a supporting cast that can already sort of hold its own on offense, those same stars may not always provide as much raw lift, because there's more offensive redundancy, and less room to the [realistic] absolute ceiling of offensive greatness. For example, if Jokic's cast could exist as a 113 ORtg
without him, there's no way he could provide the +18.5 lift he's currently managing......it's just not realistic to register a >130 ORtg over any relevant sample. So most stars see their offensive imprint decline as offensive redundancy increases.
Draymond's sort of the opposite, because his limited offensive capacity just happens to be perfectly complimentary to an abundance of shooting talent [in particular] around him. Take that away, and he flounders; basically becomes an empty uniform on offense. And indeed, in the 9-year span of '15 to '23, '20 is his worst offensive on/off with the exception of '22
*.
*'22 was an injury season where he missed everything from basically from early January to early March. His minutes were largely replaced by Jonathan Kuminga, who was at least scoring reasonably well that year, and a little by Kevon Looney (excellent offensive rebounder who also has an outstanding big-man turnover economy, with somewhat significant distribution/assisting numbers).
ALSO, Klay Thompson returned to the line-up at almost the very moment that Draymond went out.
AND FINALLY, as soon as Draymond came back, Stephen Curry went OUT for the final 12 games.
Naturally, all of these factors would turn his offensive on/off metric for the season downward.While I know '20 is a few years removed from his consensus peak, it's still almost entirely under the age of 30, and two years BEFORE he showed big impact on yet another title team.
That year, even with him on the court, they were a -7.1 net rating (would have been 28th in the league). So the "floor-raising" we were looking at was taking the worst team and lifting them from 30th to 28th. I personally don't see '16 Draymond doing much better with that cast.
I won't declare I'm right, and "I get" the arguments in favour of him (no question he had superstar-level impact on some great teams). I just think Draymond is an odd specimen, who---on the flip-side---can be reduced to merely a fair/decent starter-level player in less than ideal settings.
"The fact that a proposition is absurd has never hindered those who wish to believe it." -Edward Rutherfurd
"Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire
