Draymond or Marion?

[rand]

Without knowing anything else about your roster, which player in their prime would you take for a three-season run, Draymond Green or Shawn Marion?

[kcktiny]

Marion. And it's not really close.

Green was the better defender but Marion was a very good to excellent defender most of his career. The difference is he played on a Suns team with Nash and Stoudemire - two poor defenders - playing a lot of minutes. Green had other mostly good defenders around him (Marion did have Raja Bell who was a very good defender) like Klay, Iguodala, Bogut.

But offensively it's no comparison. From the ages of 22-31 (when both were in the league for an apples to apples comparison) Green was not much more than a PG in the frontcourt, not very efficient on offense, scored all of 12.2 pts/40min over the decade.

Marion over the decade scored 18.7 pts/40min, was much more efficient on offense, was a far better offensive rebounder.

Over these 10 year spans Marion scored 7600+ more points, with 2700+ more rebounds, 400+ more steals, and 270+ more blocks - yet with 270+ less turnovers - than Green.

Over that age range Marion played 38 min/g, Green 28 min/g. Played 3000+ minutes 6 straight seasons (2001-02 to 2006-07), Green played more than 2500 minutes in a season just once in his career.

So not much of a comparison.

[parsnips33]

Marion. And it's not really close.

Green was the better defender but Marion was a very good to excellent defender most of his career. The difference is he played on a Suns team with Nash and Stoudemire - two poor defenders - playing a lot of minutes. Green had other mostly good defenders around him (Marion did have Raja Bell who was a very good defender) like Klay, Iguodala, Bogut.

But offensively it's no comparison. From the ages of 22-31 (when both were in the league for an apples to apples comparison) Green was not much more than a PG in the frontcourt, not very efficient on offense, scored all of 12.2 pts/40min over the decade.

Marion over the decade scored 18.7 pts/40min, was much more efficient on offense, was a far better offensive rebounder.

Over these 10 year spans Marion scored 7600+ more points, with 2700+ more rebounds, 400+ more steals, and 270+ more blocks - yet with 270+ less turnovers - than Green.

Over that age range Marion played 38 min/g, Green 28 min/g. Played 3000+ minutes 6 straight seasons (2001-02 to 2006-07), Green played more than 2500 minutes in a season just once in his career.

So not much of a comparison.

At least put assists in there if you're gonna bring up turnovers

[Gibson22]

marion

[Dooley]

I think Dray's a significantly better defender (DPOY level vs All-Defense level). And while Marion's definitely a better scorer, you still want him as the 3rd best offensive option at your team at most. All things considered I'd definitely take Green's playmaking + defense.

[tsherkin]

Green is quite bad on offense. On most teams, he is not worth it at all compared to someone like Marion.

[70sFan]

Green was the better defender but Marion was a very good to excellent defender most of his career.

This is what I'm talking about. Defense doesn't matter, as long as you are "very good". This is the problem we have with basketball discussions.

[The-Power]

Green is quite bad on offense. On most teams, he is not worth it at all compared to someone like Marion.

What's the evidence for that? Green is a bad scorer (with some exceptions) but there's a lot more to offense than that. It's still bewildering to me how people can look at the second best player of a dynasty and rank him below Shawn Marion (with all due respect).

[Owly]

I'd want to say Marion, I think I have to say Green.

I love all the stuff Marion does, despite not being a huge volume scorer (Draymond too, Marion being perhaps more productive in the boxscore).

Plus minus and impact stuff is noisy in small samples, Green got to play with Curry etc. And I don't love some aspects of Green ("they suck", multiple groin shots in one playoffs) ...

But we said three years. 15-17 Green's on-off is 17.7. Curry's, on the same team over the same span, is better (19.3) ... David Robinson's 3 year estimates will I think be higher, Garnett has an 18.2 three year spell, LeBron has a couple of separate spells averaging above 16, Stockton has a 15.2 on lower minutes ... without really knowing everyone's numbers I'm of the impression that this is a fairly stratospheric number.

Plus-minus is particularly noisy (I use it here because of ease of access, lack of knowledge of the alternatives regarding quality, non-constroversiality, availability from same source and scale etc), Green got to play with Curry (though from snippets I recall on here there seemed to be some suggestion in at least some year/years that Green was holding up his end of supplying impact via the splits), Green happens to have his strongest years neatly aligned ...

That said, from my limited understanding, from what I've seen, and in answering the specific 3 year spell question asked here it seems hard to tilt away from Draymond here if you have any significant faith in "impact" style measures.

[tsherkin]

Green is quite bad on offense. On most teams, he is not worth it at all compared to someone like Marion.

What's the evidence for that? Green is a bad scorer (with some exceptions) but there's a lot more to offense than that. It's still bewildering to me how people can look at the second best player of a dynasty and rank him below Shawn Marion (with all due respect).

Oh, no, I was just being hyperbolic; Green obviously has notable value to the Warriors. Green is a reluctant shooter and a terrible scorer. He's a very good passer, though his utility is limited to teams that can actually afford to run 4-on-5 as far as actual scoring threats. You put him on a different team and I suspect his impact would be fairly small due to his limited profile of scoring ability.

Meantime, Marion was also a very good and versatile defender and just as valuable as a running mate to the star guard running his team, so it's not actually a really bad comparison. They're stylistically quite different. Marion obviously relied heavily on Nash to become a particularly efficient player. Great in transition, terrible iso scorer. Very good rebounder. Good at crashing the glass, running his lanes, etc. Not a particularly good shooter.

I think which one you pick has more to do with your specific team construction than anything else.

[ShotCreator]

Green is quite bad on offense. On most teams, he is not worth it at all compared to someone like Marion.

What's the evidence for that? Green is a bad scorer (with some exceptions) but there's a lot more to offense than that. It's still bewildering to me how people can look at the second best player of a dynasty and rank him below Shawn Marion (with all due respect).

15-17 Draymond was not even a bad scorer.

[Chronz]

The thing with Marion is that he would be better served as a PF, the way he was used in SSOL era, and while he could rebound with the bigs of his era, he wasn't that great of a defender against those bigs. So in today's NBA, I doubt he would be able to play Center the way Draymond can and that makes all the difference to me. Hes also got the mindset of a franchise player when hes a 3rd banana type so he will ruin your chemistry towards the end of the run.

Ive been pretty big on Dray over the years tho

[ShotCreator]

The thing with Marion is that he would be better served as a PF, the way he was used in SSOL era, and while he could rebound with the bigs of his era, he wasn't that great of a defender against those bigs. So in today's NBA, I doubt he would be able to play Center the way Draymond can and that makes all the difference to me. Hes also got the mindset of a franchise player when hes a 3rd banana type so he will ruin your chemistry towards the end of the run.

Ive been pretty big on Dray over the years tho

Nothing unrealistic here. I also want to note how diminished Marion was offensively before and after playing with Nash. The center of the universe on those Suns teams.


OTOH, Draymond and his ability to play the 5, was the defining aspect of the GS Warriors complete dominance of an era. It shifted the philosophy and play style of the entire league.

Marion was an athletically elite SF with the raw instincts of a big man.

Offensively they both were optimized in good spots but defensively Draymond is multiple tiers up over Marion in quality and resiliency that I think fans would have a hard time conceptualizing. It’s a Curry to Kemba Walker kind of defensive gap.

[colts18]

In 2020 without Curry, 29 year old Draymond Green averaged 8 PPG, 6.2 AST-2.3 TOV, shooting 38.9 FG%/27.9 3P%, 48.9 TS% on a 15 win team. Calling Draymond Green a good offensive player or even average one is wrong. There has never been a good offensive player who had that bad of a season during their prime.

[LAL1947]

To play PF? Draymond.
To play SF? Marion.

As Tsherkin said, picking between these two is heavily dependent on roster construction.

Anyway, since you haven't mentioned position, if I have to pick one and build around them... I'll vote Draymond for the play-making. Who knows what sort of PG the team will get, there are more shooting/scoring PGs these days than Nash/Billups types. Draymond's play-making is a huge plus in that regard.

[tsherkin]

15-17 Draymond was not even a bad scorer.

Disagree. He left a lot of points at the foul line and he had no range, except in 2016 when he was hitting his three. 2016 specifically was a decent year, of course. But he's become very shot-averse, and that's a problem. Was he wildly inefficient? No, but he also curated his shots very carefully and a very, very large proportion of his shots are fed to him at the rim by others, or in transition. He doesn't create for himself, he's slow to shoot even wide open shots, he has poor range beneath the arc and isn't a competent 3pt shooter (2016 being the exception).

Again, I'll give you 2016, but 2015 and 2017 were not good years for him either. I suppose we can go round and round over what we each semantically identify as a "good" scorer, but when you're that low-volume and you're that inefficient, you're crap.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Draymond is a good offensive player if in a specific role.

You kind of need a guy to force a trap on the p and r so he can get into 4v3 playmaking situations on a good passing/shooting team.

He’s not a good offensive player in the sense that he’s good in a vacuum, and you do need pieces to optimize him from being a pretty large negative offensively to a good positive

I think it’s different from like let’s say a guy like reddick whose skillset is limited but gonna be good no matter what

Now in terms of non scorers Draymond is better at not just standing around doing nothing, he does stuff off ball, but it’s fair to say that in a lot of situations he’s probably a negative on that end

But in the role he was in sure his impact overall was amazing and he was great, and obv his defense is absurd, and gets better in the playoffs

I pick Dray p easily

[Dutchball97]

Draymond's PI RAPM for all three years between 2015-2017 is better than Marion's best season. Boxscore stat wise they're very similar with both having a 2.7 career BPM and 5.5 and 5.6 BPM peaks respectively. Marion also regularly underperformed in the play-offs, while Dray thrives in the post-season. In a vacuum I'd take Draymond here although I agree Marion would be better for certain roster constructions due to being a better scorer.

[penbeast0]

I'm a huge Matrix fan but I tend to agree that Draymond has the stronger career value already even without his career being over. Maybe I just value Draymond Green that much though I don't think of him as a favorite player; more a Dennis Rodman type that opposing fans love to hate.

[Owly]

Draymond's PI RAPM for all three years between 2015-2017 is better than Marion's best season. Boxscore stat wise they're very similar with both having a 2.7 career BPM and 5.5 and 5.6 BPM peaks respectively. Marion also regularly underperformed in the play-offs, while Dray thrives in the post-season. In a vacuum I'd take Draymond here although I agree Marion would be better for certain roster constructions due to being a better scorer.

Don’t love playoff on-off because uneven samples in terms of opponents in general, opponents on versus off, uneven career spread etc … so super noisy ... that said if you’re looking towards impact …

Marion’s career playoff on-off is +9.6 (and this is pulled down by post-prime years) and fwiw a little better than his more prominent teammate in their 3 years together (which isn't something to draw strong conclusions from but likely not just sharing the court with Nash).

His box drop doesn’t look atypical versus what’s normal (average player is a higher standard and typical opponent is a higher standard) at least at first glance.

Green does look better by the box career wise in the playoffs with a caveat - Green is boosted by not having any playoff minutes in weaker 20 and 21 campaigns) - and has even better on-off numbers (and also has slightly better number here than famous teammate). This isn’t anti Green..

Maybe you’ve got better, more precise numbers … to me “Marion also regularly underperformed in the play-offs” seems quite a harsh angle.