RealGM 2023 Top 100 Project - #51 (Draymond Green)

[Mogspan]

I don't mean this to be a dig, though this IS a concern/criticism that was brought up by those against him going this high. These things cost (as the talking heads discuss).
Anyway, this feels right on cue to his placement here (which yes: I was one of the people objecting to this placement). Interesting discussion, at any rate....

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Yup--it is a very huge blackmark that is only growing. I still love him at his peak as a player [Not quite Eminence level high, but still Top 5-ish player in 2016 high] but for career value, yikes!

0 argument for being even top-10 in 2016; he cost his impossibly stacked team a title. I’m legitimately unconvinced that replacing him with Robert Covington in 2014 would have resulted in fewer than 4 titles for the Warriors.

[rk2023]

I don't mean this to be a dig, though this IS a concern/criticism that was brought up by those against him going this high. These things cost (as the talking heads discuss).
Anyway, this feels right on cue to his placement here (which yes: I was one of the people objecting to this placement). Interesting discussion, at any rate....

Watch on YouTube

I don’t think I’ve seen a coincidence like this, wow

[MiamiBulls]

The 2016 Warriors had the Worst Defense in the NBA w/Draymond off-the-floor & 3rd Best Defense w/Draymond on-the-floor.

There isn't a single player on the 2016 Warriors that had anywhere close to that level of a Defensive swing at a team; it's a marginally positive defensive swing at best & negative on average.

No.1 in RAPM (2016)
No.1 in PIPM (2016)
No.1 in Net Swing (2016)

2016 Warriors are an incompetent Defensive Team without Draymond.

[SpreeS]

Yes he won a lot, but his behavior cost just as much. They won as a group, but he **** up personally.

2016 suspension in the Finals what cost the chip
2019 attacked Durnat and ruined dinasty
2022 punched Poole (ruined team chemistry for whole season)
2023 suspension against Kings in PO what could have ended 0-3
2024 two suspensions and 3 ejection (ruined again whole season)

So if he was on other team, which didn't win anything. How would we value him with all his sortcommings? Now we can say he won and lose a lot, but in other dimension Green could stay only with lose a lot due to his character. He is lucky that Curry/Klay are chill dudes, what if he would played with Harden/Paul/Kobe?

[AEnigma]

Yes he won a lot, but his behavior cost just as much. They won as a group, but he **** up personally.

2016 suspension in the Finals what cost the chip

If Draymond alone is worth a 15-point swing then he obviously deserves be in here.

2019 attacked Durnat and ruined dinasty

Just because Draymond is an ass does not mean we need to ignore how Durant has a fragile ego and never got over the lack of appreciation he received for winning with a 73-win team. And in any case, Draymond was the Warrior most involved in recruiting Durant on a personal level.

2022 punched Poole (ruined team chemistry for whole season)

That was 2023, and how are we quantifying this? They had homecourt in the second round, but residual “chemistry” issues ruined their season? I think he probably ruined Poole’s season, yeah. I also think Poole played way above his head in 2022, as did Payton, and as did Wiggins to some extent, all against an easier field of opponents than was present the following year, and then in 2023 they had a further aged Klay, a further aged Draymond, and no Otto Porter. None of that is tied to Draymond ruining “chemistry”.

2023 suspension against Kings in PO what could have ended 0-3

Oh, neat, now we are blaming him for games and series his team won. In that case, if untimely postseason absences by rule cost legacy points… then what about Steph missing multiple games in the 2016 and 2018 postseasons? He was voted in at #11, and Jerry West was voted in at #14, and Kawhi was voted in at #34, and now you want to clutch pearls because Draymond missed two games?

So if he was on other team, which didn't win anything. How would we value him with all his sortcommings? Now we can say he won and lose a lot, but in other dimension Green could stay only with lose a lot due to his character. He is lucky that Curry/Klay are chill dudes, what if he would played with Harden/Paul/Kobe?

Here I agree, but only to a point. Highlighting three top thirty names — and there is another top four name who fits this criticism to a much greater extent — makes it clear that ability generally wins out over time.

I understand the impulse, but we do not need to rewrite what happened. Yeah, Draymond has done a lot of damage to this season. He has also been the league’s best defender for nearly a decade, and his unique playmaking allowed Kerr to maximise Curry’s off-ball prowess. He is a dirty player… who has generally been allowed to get away with it and accordingly benefit his teams through it. If Draymond got injured for the start of this season, he would not deserve to go higher, and any argument that this season has been business as usual for him is made with total disregard for his real history.

[trex_8063]

fwiw (response to "league's best defensive player for a decade" comment), there are a number of years I'd argue Rudy Gobert over Draymond defensively. And I think who between them was best collectively or overall over the last 10 years is debateable.

[AEnigma]

In most eras of the league I would be inclined to agree, but there has not been a single postseason where I thought Gobert was more valuable defensively than Green (although 2018/19 came close).

[Doctor MJ]

In most eras of the league I would be inclined to agree, but there has not been a single postseason where I thought Gobert was more valuable defensively than Green (although 2018/19 came close).

Yup, that's the thing.

If you were simply making an argument of the "postseason defender of the decade", I don't know why you'd even consider Gobert. In a sport where the regular season and postseason work so differently, and the postseason determines legacy, that's a hard thing to get past.

[Doctor MJ]

ftr, as someone who was supporting Green here, and I don't have a glad feeling that he got voted in just before more s**t hit the fan. My bias is for the project at the end to reflect how people see the player at project's end. We're clearly not getting that with Green. His earlier issues this year I think kept him from getting voting in a bit earlier, but it's also very possible that he'd go considerably longer without getting voted in given where things are now with his violent behavior, and to the extent that would've happened, I wish it would've.

But of course, I kept voting for Green the whole time and I don't regret that. I can't say at this time that his '23-24 issues make me completely change how I rate his performances through '22-23, even though the negatives this year are not unrelated to the negatives of prior years.

[iggymcfrack]

ftr, as someone who was supporting Green here, and I don't have a glad feeling that he got voted in just before more s**t hit the fan. My bias is for the project at the end to reflect how people see the player at project's end. We're clearly not getting that with Green. His earlier issues this year I think kept him from getting voting in a bit earlier, but it's also very possible that he'd go considerably longer without getting voted in given where things are now with his violent behavior, and to the extent that would've happened, I wish it would've.

But of course, I kept voting for Green the whole time and I don't regret that. I can't say at this time that his '23-24 issues make me completely change how I rate his performances through '22-23, even though the negatives this year are not unrelated to the negatives of prior years.

If anything it's good he got in when he did since voters are told explicitly to ignore the current season when voting. It's supposed to be a snapshot for the summer of 2023 in the offseason.

[MyUniBroDavis]

In most eras of the league I would be inclined to agree, but there has not been a single postseason where I thought Gobert was more valuable defensively than Green (although 2018/19 came close).

Yup, that's the thing.

If you were simply making an argument of the "postseason defender of the decade", I don't know why you'd even consider Gobert. In a sport where the regular season and postseason work so differently, and the postseason determines legacy, that's a hard thing to get past.

Gobert is interesting because people have pushed back hard on the “liability on defense in the playoffs” narrative really hard to the point that sometimes guys try to brush it off, but while the idea he’s a legitimate liability on that end in the playoffs is BS, I’d also say that given the nature of his impact a lot of teams can play around it better now.

Doesn’t mean he isn’t a good defender in the playoffs he’s still great and he’s not particularly weak in areas like switching or hedging relative to most shot blocking bigs, but I don’t see how you can argue him over Dray with how good Drays been in the playoffs at times.

I don’t even think Dray has the best or second best defensive playoff peak of the past 10 or so years despite his great impact data in that regard, but still

[eminence]

In most eras of the league I would be inclined to agree, but there has not been a single postseason where I thought Gobert was more valuable defensively than Green (although 2018/19 came close).

'20 and '21

More seriously, I'd give Gobert '23.

[Doctor MJ]

ftr, as someone who was supporting Green here, and I don't have a glad feeling that he got voted in just before more s**t hit the fan. My bias is for the project at the end to reflect how people see the player at project's end. We're clearly not getting that with Green. His earlier issues this year I think kept him from getting voting in a bit earlier, but it's also very possible that he'd go considerably longer without getting voted in given where things are now with his violent behavior, and to the extent that would've happened, I wish it would've.

But of course, I kept voting for Green the whole time and I don't regret that. I can't say at this time that his '23-24 issues make me completely change how I rate his performances through '22-23, even though the negatives this year are not unrelated to the negatives of prior years.

If anything it's good he got in when he did since voters are told explicitly to ignore the current season when voting. It's supposed to be a snapshot for the summer of 2023 in the offseason.

A reasonable point.

[Doctor MJ]

In most eras of the league I would be inclined to agree, but there has not been a single postseason where I thought Gobert was more valuable defensively than Green (although 2018/19 came close).

Yup, that's the thing.

If you were simply making an argument of the "postseason defender of the decade", I don't know why you'd even consider Gobert. In a sport where the regular season and postseason work so differently, and the postseason determines legacy, that's a hard thing to get past.

Gobert is interesting because people have pushed back hard on the “liability on defense in the playoffs” narrative really hard to the point that sometimes guys try to brush it off, but while the idea he’s a legitimate liability on that end in the playoffs is BS, I’d also say that given the nature of his impact a lot of teams can play around it better now.

Doesn’t mean he isn’t a good defender in the playoffs he’s still great and he’s not particularly weak in areas like switching or hedging relative to most shot blocking bigs, but I don’t see how you can argue him over Dray with how good Drays been in the playoffs at times.

I don’t even think Dray has the best or second best defensive playoff peak of the past 10 or so years despite his great impact data in that regard, but still

I'm willing to listen to argument that Gobert is the more capable playoff defender, but they have to come with a component talking about the fact that mostly Gobert's played on teams that get destroyed in the playoffs. Fine to argue it's not his fault, but you have to really reckon with what happened.

Re: best defensive peak of the past 10 years. I think Davis has a good argument there, and I think Ben's made a good case that Davis really is a super-outlier when he's on his game regardless of the fact that he can't keep it up all season long. Other than Davis, I'm not sure I'd really debate over Green. I feel like if you're not talking about Davis, Green or Gobert you're probably talking Giannis or Bam, but in both cases I see them as easier to mitigate for than Davis or Green.

[MyUniBroDavis]

Yup, that's the thing.

If you were simply making an argument of the "postseason defender of the decade", I don't know why you'd even consider Gobert. In a sport where the regular season and postseason work so differently, and the postseason determines legacy, that's a hard thing to get past.

Gobert is interesting because people have pushed back hard on the “liability on defense in the playoffs” narrative really hard to the point that sometimes guys try to brush it off, but while the idea he’s a legitimate liability on that end in the playoffs is BS, I’d also say that given the nature of his impact a lot of teams can play around it better now.

Doesn’t mean he isn’t a good defender in the playoffs he’s still great and he’s not particularly weak in areas like switching or hedging relative to most shot blocking bigs, but I don’t see how you can argue him over Dray with how good Drays been in the playoffs at times.

I don’t even think Dray has the best or second best defensive playoff peak of the past 10 or so years despite his great impact data in that regard, but still

I'm willing to listen to argument that Gobert is the more capable playoff defender, but they have to come with a component talking about the fact that mostly Gobert's played on teams that get destroyed in the playoffs. Fine to argue it's not his fault, but you have to really reckon with what happened.

Re: best defensive peak of the past 10 years. I think Davis has a good argument there, and I think Ben's made a good case that Davis really is a super-outlier when he's on his game regardless of the fact that he can't keep it up all season long. Other than Davis, I'm not sure I'd really debate over Green. I feel like if you're not talking about Davis, Green or Gobert you're probably talking Giannis or Bam, but in both cases I see them as easier to mitigate for than Davis or Green.

For me Davis’s only real weakness is he can’t guard uber dominant post players like Jokic or Embiid at all, but outside of obesity for those stretches he’s locked in, he’s insane

I thought last year, even with the injury, he was a DPOY level guy after a slow start (which was enough for why I think he probably wouldn’t have deserved it to be clear), then he played one of the best defensive series I’ve ever seen vs the Grizzlies and kind of shut down the entire steph offense, with us top locking off their cuts and playing a high drop since AD can legitimately contest those. Even vs the Nuggets once they put him off Jokic and more roaming and helping they were able to hold him in the post below 50% inside the arc, most of his play and assists came off of transition + handoffs + incredible reads rather than beating post overhelp.

Iirc they were a bottom 2 defense during ADs injury last year and top 5-10 ish in the games he played coming back, even ore trades


The way I view it is Dray is someone that can figure out and read the opposing gameplan, but at the end of the day sometimes knowing something is gonna happen isn’t enough (although most of the time it is), whereas AD is one of the few guys ever that can be a checkmate on defense against a ton of offenses, you put the right pieces around him and use them correctly. Of course, in a perfect world offense generally wins out though.

For the decade, Dray for sure I think, but I think AD peaked a bit higher. People sleep on his IQ too, it’s not quite drays but I’m pretty comfortable saying no ones compares to Drays, but he’s absolutely got one of the best defensive IQs in the league

Feel 2020 and 2021 Giannis probably have a very strong argument just from what I’ve seen but I’d need to see a lot more film to be sure

[Doctor MJ]

Gobert is interesting because people have pushed back hard on the “liability on defense in the playoffs” narrative really hard to the point that sometimes guys try to brush it off, but while the idea he’s a legitimate liability on that end in the playoffs is BS, I’d also say that given the nature of his impact a lot of teams can play around it better now.

Doesn’t mean he isn’t a good defender in the playoffs he’s still great and he’s not particularly weak in areas like switching or hedging relative to most shot blocking bigs, but I don’t see how you can argue him over Dray with how good Drays been in the playoffs at times.

I don’t even think Dray has the best or second best defensive playoff peak of the past 10 or so years despite his great impact data in that regard, but still

I'm willing to listen to argument that Gobert is the more capable playoff defender, but they have to come with a component talking about the fact that mostly Gobert's played on teams that get destroyed in the playoffs. Fine to argue it's not his fault, but you have to really reckon with what happened.

Re: best defensive peak of the past 10 years. I think Davis has a good argument there, and I think Ben's made a good case that Davis really is a super-outlier when he's on his game regardless of the fact that he can't keep it up all season long. Other than Davis, I'm not sure I'd really debate over Green. I feel like if you're not talking about Davis, Green or Gobert you're probably talking Giannis or Bam, but in both cases I see them as easier to mitigate for than Davis or Green.

For me Davis’s only real weakness is he can’t guard uber dominant post players like Jokic or Embiid at all, but outside of obesity for those stretches he’s locked in, he’s insane

I thought last year, even with the injury, he was a DPOY level guy after a slow start (which was enough for why I think he probably wouldn’t have deserved it to be clear), then he played one of the best defensive series I’ve ever seen vs the Grizzlies and kind of shut down the entire steph offense, with us top locking off their cuts and playing a high drop since AD can legitimately contest those. Even vs the Nuggets once they put him off Jokic and more roaming and helping they were able to hold him in the post below 50% inside the arc, most of his play and assists came off of transition + handoffs + incredible reads rather than beating post overhelp.

Iirc they were a bottom 2 defense during ADs injury last year and top 5-10 ish in the games he played coming back, even ore trades


The way I view it is Dray is someone that can figure out and read the opposing gameplan, but at the end of the day sometimes knowing something is gonna happen isn’t enough (although most of the time it is), whereas AD is one of the few guys ever that can be a checkmate on defense if you put the right pieces around him and use them correctly

For the decade, Dray for sure I think, but I think AD peaked a bit higher

Feel 2020 and 2021 Giannis probably have a very strong argument just from what I’ve seen but I’d need to see a lot more film to be sure

Yup, there's no one without weaknesses. To be strong enough to handle Jokic is generally to be massive enough to lack the agility that top help defenders have. The question of who is best is really about what skills are most important given the opposition you face.

The existence of a Jokic has the potential to shift what is most important for contenders, but frankly to this point I'm not sure if there's ever been an era where something along the lines of the Davis build isn't the most valuable thing you can be as a defender. (Davis' injuries hold him back in way some others aren't, and while I'd consider Davis a pretty high BBIQ guy, there are higher.)

I'll say I'm glad you point out that Davis was still quite effective in the Denver series as a help defender. While an ideal defender would of course be able to defend Jokic as well as possible, you don't want your all-world help defender to be stuck on man defense, so it's possible to overstate the importance of man defense when evaluating Davis.

[AEnigma]

In most eras of the league I would be inclined to agree, but there has not been a single postseason where I thought Gobert was more valuable defensively than Green (although 2018/19 came close).

'20 and '21

I get the joke but the problem is that those are some of Gobert’s least successful defensive postseasons. We can of course argue fault (minimally his) and whether Draymond would have realistically been able to do more (eh), but to me that is a bit like arguing Mitchell as a more productive postseason producer of offence than Luka last year.

More seriously, I'd give Gobert '23.

I do not think Gobert had an overall more effective first round at all, and to whatever extent you want to point to Game 3 of the Kings series, it is just as easy to point to the Lakers play-in game for Gobert.

[MyUniBroDavis]

I'm willing to listen to argument that Gobert is the more capable playoff defender, but they have to come with a component talking about the fact that mostly Gobert's played on teams that get destroyed in the playoffs. Fine to argue it's not his fault, but you have to really reckon with what happened.

Re: best defensive peak of the past 10 years. I think Davis has a good argument there, and I think Ben's made a good case that Davis really is a super-outlier when he's on his game regardless of the fact that he can't keep it up all season long. Other than Davis, I'm not sure I'd really debate over Green. I feel like if you're not talking about Davis, Green or Gobert you're probably talking Giannis or Bam, but in both cases I see them as easier to mitigate for than Davis or Green.

For me Davis’s only real weakness is he can’t guard uber dominant post players like Jokic or Embiid at all, but outside of obesity for those stretches he’s locked in, he’s insane

I thought last year, even with the injury, he was a DPOY level guy after a slow start (which was enough for why I think he probably wouldn’t have deserved it to be clear), then he played one of the best defensive series I’ve ever seen vs the Grizzlies and kind of shut down the entire steph offense, with us top locking off their cuts and playing a high drop since AD can legitimately contest those. Even vs the Nuggets once they put him off Jokic and more roaming and helping they were able to hold him in the post below 50% inside the arc, most of his play and assists came off of transition + handoffs + incredible reads rather than beating post overhelp.

Iirc they were a bottom 2 defense during ADs injury last year and top 5-10 ish in the games he played coming back, even ore trades


The way I view it is Dray is someone that can figure out and read the opposing gameplan, but at the end of the day sometimes knowing something is gonna happen isn’t enough (although most of the time it is), whereas AD is one of the few guys ever that can be a checkmate on defense if you put the right pieces around him and use them correctly

For the decade, Dray for sure I think, but I think AD peaked a bit higher

Feel 2020 and 2021 Giannis probably have a very strong argument just from what I’ve seen but I’d need to see a lot more film to be sure

Yup, there's no one without weaknesses. To be strong enough to handle Jokic is generally to be massive enough to lack the agility that top help defenders have. The question of who is best is really about what skills are most important given the opposition you face.

The existence of a Jokic has the potential to shift what is most important for contenders, but frankly to this point I'm not sure if there's ever been an era where something along the lines of the Davis build isn't the most valuable thing you can be as a defender. (Davis' injuries hold him back in way some others aren't, and while I'd consider Davis a pretty high BBIQ guy, there are higher.)

I'll say I'm glad you point out that Davis was still quite effective in the Denver series as a help defender. While an ideal defender would of course be able to defend Jokic as well as possible, you don't want your all-world help defender to be stuck on man defense, so it's possible to overstate the importance of man defense when evaluating Davis.

I think ADs iq went way up in LA, I don’t wanna do the “zomg he learned from bron” thing but going from the pels with gentry to vogel/bron (and it has to be said ham too lol) is a huge jump, I’d say he’s all time in that regard now when he’s locked in

With AD specifically it’s tough because I do think at his best he’d be 235, the weight he was in 2015 before they buffed him up a bit too much

I don’t think Jokic changes things that much, maybe you have a Shaq situation there but unless the Nuggets because this overwhelming dynasty I don’t really see it, in general smart help is how you guard those unstoppable one on one forces now rather than other stuff, and then it’s a thing about countering help countering the counter and all that BS

[Owly]

ftr, as someone who was supporting Green here, and I don't have a glad feeling that he got voted in just before more s**t hit the fan. My bias is for the project at the end to reflect how people see the player at project's end. We're clearly not getting that with Green. His earlier issues this year I think kept him from getting voting in a bit earlier, but it's also very possible that he'd go considerably longer without getting voted in given where things are now with his violent behavior, and to the extent that would've happened, I wish it would've.

But of course, I kept voting for Green the whole time and I don't regret that. I can't say at this time that his '23-24 issues make me completely change how I rate his performances through '22-23, even though the negatives this year are not unrelated to the negatives of prior years.

If anything it's good he got in when he did since voters are told explicitly to ignore the current season when voting. It's supposed to be a snapshot for the summer of 2023 in the offseason.

There's something to that (with the purpose of consistency over a long project) though in the past certainly it's not quite been as you phrased it. It is supposed evaluate their career up to the end of the prior year. But just as we don't stop evaluating a player because they are retired, we can gain new evidence on the player in general and reform our view of past iterations. If one is now more convinced he can't or won't stop the violence and the distribution is chance (or past Kerr doing better at keeping him in line or whatever, anything not him) rather than '24 Draymond is a different beast ... then it's entirely legitimate to adjust earlier years.

[eminence]

In most eras of the league I would be inclined to agree, but there has not been a single postseason where I thought Gobert was more valuable defensively than Green (although 2018/19 came close).

'20 and '21

I get the joke but the problem is that those are some of Gobert’s least successful defensive postseasons. We can of course argue fault (minimally his) and whether Draymond would have realistically been able to do more (eh), but to me that is a bit like arguing Mitchell as a more productive postseason producer of offence than Luka last year.

More seriously, I'd give Gobert '23.

I do not think Gobert had an overall more effective first round at all, and to whatever extent you want to point to Game 3 of the Kings series, it is just as easy to point to the Lakers play-in game for Gobert.

We'll have to disagree on that one, I had Rudy as significantly more impressive against the Nuggets than Dray was against anyone.

I had Looney pretty cleanly outplaying Dray in round 1 last season.