16 Draymond or 17 Westbrook

[Top10alltime]

Both of these players two respective peaks, which season is better, and why? I'll be hoping for long, in-depth discussion!

[trelos6]

First of all, props to Westbrook for an amazing season. He was relentless in attacking the rim and is still in the top 10 for drives per game in recorded seasons.

Westbrook created a ton of shots for his team, and also scored at a good rate (33 pp75) albeit on league average efficiency. Despite such a massive usage, and yes I'm aware the team around him wasn't great, the Thunder were only 16th in offense, below league average.

Draymond on the other hand, did it all. 14.5 pp75, +4.6 rTS%, including 39% from 3. Cerebral and willing passer, and that's before we talk about his defense. Amazing defensive anchor, Draymond is the 1B reason why the 2016 Warriors won a record 73 games.

[Jaivl]

Very close comparison between two (ahem) top 25 peaks of this century.

Think I lean Westbrook. He has shown me enough as both a #1 (2016-2017) and #2 (2011-2015). Does Draymond get lazy if on a subpar team? Unmotivated Draymond is not too good of a player (see 2021).

[Mavrelous]

It's a floor vs cieling question, prime Westbrook is the ultimate floor raiser, Green is a generational defender who has very useful qualities offensively, on a contender I'd take Draymond.

[eminence]

I'll go Draymond slightly, prefer '16 Westbrook as his peak as well. Approximately the same level of player in a much more competitive setting, which with a Westbrook type player I do have doubts sometimes.

[Top10alltime]

Very close comparison between two (ahem) top 25 peaks of this century.

Think I lean Westbrook. He has shown me enough as both a #1 (2016-2017) and #2 (2011-2015). Does Draymond get lazy if on a subpar team? Unmotivated Draymond is not too good of a player (see 2021).

Why though? Draymond is...

ATG post defender, ATG rim protector, ATG d-PM, GOAT lvl d-communication and versatility (pushing him at that Wilt, DROB, Nate level defensively, just behind the Duncan and KG).

He has great passing and is a great connector, and great hand-off guy. A great screen-setter and a good scorer.

Why is WB > Dray peak for peaks?

[DraymondGold]

I lean Draymond if we're talking about championship odds, and if the 2016 3 point shooting/scoring is sustainable. (which shouldn't be surprising given my username).

My pick for the best defensive player of the era -- although like always there are a few other contenders, and this is an era where individual big man defensive impact is more muted. Compared to Westbrook who's a small positive at best, and it's a pretty massive advantage Draymond.

Of course, Westbrook has the massive offensive advantage, but during 2016-2017 specifically Draymond had the tools to be a clear positive offensively, and particularly on a high-level team.
Westbrook has the massive scoring advantage, which puts a ton of pressure on opposing defenses. Westbrook had +34 points/75 vs Draymond's +15.1, but at +0.1% rTS vs Draymond's +4.3%, and at a load of 74.4 vs Draymond's 34.3. There is basically no championship team, short of adding him to the 2004 Pistons, where Russell Westbrook could carry such an offensive load. The prior year (2016; basically the same player but in a much different system), Westbrook was +26 pts/75 at +1 rTS%. Still a clearly better scorer, but starting to be less of a gap.
Then consider that Draymond could modulate his scoring up in the playoffs when the team needed him to (basically only that year), and that Draymond's the better 3 point shooter that year (27% Westbrook vs 39 % 3P% Draymond) in an era where 3 point shooting and spacing are becoming more important (and big man spacing is especially valuable) and the scoring gap starts to shrink more.

Then consider that Draymond is also one of the best passers in the league (like Westbrook), and that he's smarter than Westbrook as a offensive communicator / play caller, that he's a 'little things king' who's willing and able to screen and box out and play off ball, and it just seems to me like the offensive gap for Westbrook is smaller than the defensive gap for Draymond in their ideal situation.

And this shows up in the plus minus data. I do think Draymond's situational impact is more reliant on being in the right situation than Westbrook. But put him in the right situation, and I think he'll help his team win a championship more.

... that is, if you credit him for his scoring/shooting that year, and don't penalize him too much for his occasional bouts of toxicity / dirty plays. Draymond's one of the weirder guys in league history in terms of his shooting evolution. Few players had a shooting decline as they got older and into their prime like Draymond did. Westbrook also had an unusual shooting decline, which really came in after 2017.

It's interesting to debate where this decline came from. With Draymond, there are occasional talks of his back acting up or being sore/tired/injured post-2017, and people have speculated this hurt his shooting from range (helped no doubt by the 'backpack' memes). I've also speculated that the change in mentality ( to be hyper-focused on setting up teammates given his superteam teammates over his personal scoring ) was a positive mentality to have, but one that may have gone too far and limited his practice as a shooter/scorer, and his ability to make the shots he did have. With Westbrook, people have speculated that league free throw rules hurt his free throw shooting, that accumulated injuries/surgeries hurt his shooting, and that Westbrook relied too much on the lift from his legs in his shot (e.g. shooting at the apex/on the way down, rather than on the way up) which faded with his athleticism.

Westbrook had more of a stable sample of good shooting (albeit not 2016 Draymond shooting) before his eventual decline. But Draymond's was also a much shorter sample, and could have just been hot shooting / noise, perhaps boosted by the quality of his looks -- which were unusually open given Curry's gravity. If we take a longer lens in interpreting Draymond's shooting ability, that takes a real dent out of his quality as a scorer (those 3 point shots were a key part of his shot diet in 2016), his quality as an off-ball spacer, and his overall offensive ability. I think there's a real reason that Draymond's impact metrics (which are top 5 or better in league in 2016) decline with the loss of his scoring/shooting, despite him not becoming a worse passer or defender. If we take away this edge for Draymond, say 2016 was just hot shooting or unusually open shots from Curry's gravity, then that definitely starts to push things the other way. Not sure who I'd take in that scenario.

It's also hard to consider Draymond's toxicity / dirty plays. He got... maybe a little better after the lesson learned in 2016, but clearly it remained an issue with the Draymond-Durant verbal fight in 2019 and the Draymond-Poole actual fight in 2023 and occasional other dirty plays since then (e.g. with Gobert). I tend to be weary of voting based on perceived off-court personalities. We fans have very little information, and it's easy for people to over-index on the gossip columns. At the same time, Draymond does seem to be somewhat an outlier in terms of dirty plays / teammate fights, perhaps enough of an outlier that we can't just hand-wave it away as noise or incomplete information as a fan. These occasional bouts of toxicity actually came back to bite him in 2016 -- the Warriors might well have won if Draymond wasn't suspended in the finals, though we'll never know. Draymond does have some positives -- he's a real effort guy, and having a loud motivator has real locker room positives when things are going well. But things have also gone not so well for him, and I could understand if that were another point in Westbrook's favor (who at least to my knowledge, has a reputation of being a great teammate).

Fun comparison, really different players. The choice likely reveals as much about the basketball criteria/values of the person evaluating as it does about the players themselves.

[CS707]

Westbrook's 2017 season isn't translatable to a championship contending situation. He was able to do what he did specifically because the roster wasn't playoff level competitive and so the Thunder just let him go for broke. You could never drop him into a better roster with that strategy and expect things to work. Not only would I not take it over Draymond's season, I wouldn't take it period. It was borderline gimmicky with the ultimate goal being his personal achievements.

[lessthanjake]

Westbrook is pretty clearly better if he’s the best guy on your team IMO. While Draymond was significantly better in 2016 than 2020, I’m pretty moved on this by how bad the 2020 Warriors were. I don’t think a team with prime Westbrook would’ve ever been nearly that bad.

That said, you’d rather have Draymond on a team that already has major offensive star power. Westbrook certainly had some great teams with Durant, so I don’t think he totally fails to mesh with other offensively stars, but Westbrook really does want/need the ball, but yet his decision-making on the ball isn’t quite what you want on a title-contending team IMO.

I will note that 2016 Draymond is a real step up from any other Draymond year. I think peak Westbrook might potentially be better in all situations than any other Draymond year. (And yes, I know this is in some tension with my reference to 2020 Draymond above. Maybe it’s a bit unfair to hold the 2020 Warriors against 2016 Draymond, when I think 2016 Draymond was far better than 2020 Draymond).

[jalengreen]

As the best player on his team (the situation that gives people pause for him) in the early 2016 playoffs, Draymond gave me more reason for confidence than anything Westbrook has done as his team's best player. Presuming that the goal is to win a championship, I'd have to go with Draymond.

[lessthanjake]

As the best player on his team (the situation that gives people pause for him) in the early 2016 playoffs, Draymond gave me more reason for confidence than anything Westbrook has done as his team's best player. Presuming that the goal is to win a championship, I'd have to go with Draymond.

Not a bad point. I’d not been thinking of the fact that we did see a few playoff games of Draymond without Steph in 2016. In a sense, that’s a better data point than 2020, because it happened in the actual Draymond year in question (which is also a year I think he was significantly better in than he was in any other year). That said, it’s a small sample (6 games without Steph) and it was against teams that had below 1 SRS that year, so they were basically completely average teams.

I will note that we can actually expand that 2016-without-Curry sample a bit by adding the three regular season games that Steph missed and Draymond played. Combined with the playoff sample, we have 9 games with Draymond and no Steph and the Warriors went 6-3 with a +4.12 net rating. Their opponents in those 9 games averaged about a +0.77 regular-season net rating, so that’d be roughly a +4.89 relative net rating in 9 games. That’s not amazing, but it is actually good. I’d say it’s good enough that I’m definitely not certain peak Westbrook would’ve done better than that with that team. I’m still quite skeptical of the sample (9 games is still not a lot), but it’s definitely interesting to think about.

[Top10alltime]

As the best player on his team (the situation that gives people pause for him) in the early 2016 playoffs, Draymond gave me more reason for confidence than anything Westbrook has done as his team's best player. Presuming that the goal is to win a championship, I'd have to go with Draymond.

Not a bad point. I’d not been thinking of the fact that we did see a few playoff games of Draymond without Steph in 2016. In a sense, that’s a better data point than 2020, because it happened in the actual Draymond year in question (which is also a year I think he was significantly better in than he was in any other year). That said, it’s a small sample (6 games without Steph) and it was against teams that had below 1 SRS that year, so they were basically completely average teams.

I will note that we can actually expand that 2016-without-Curry sample a bit by adding the three regular season games that Steph missed and Draymond played. Combined with the playoff sample, we have 9 games with Draymond and no Steph and the Warriors went 6-3 with a +4.12 net rating. Their opponents in those 9 games averaged about a +0.77 regular-season net rating, so that’d be roughly a +4.89 relative net rating in 9 games. That’s not amazing, but it is actually good. I’d say it’s good enough that I’m definitely not certain peak Westbrook would’ve done better than that with that team. I’m still quite skeptical of the sample (9 games is still not a lot), but it’s definitely interesting to think about.

The underlined isn't outlier Draymond. 2017 was the same player. They both are pretty similar

[Special_Puppy]

It's a floor vs cieling question, prime Westbrook is the ultimate floor raiser, Green is a generational defender who has very useful qualities offensively, on a contender I'd take Draymond.

Westbrook demonstrated tremendous ceiling raising capacities when next to KD though. Those Thunder teams reached pretty awesome heights (though not as high as heights as those Warriors teams admittedly)

[falcolombardi]

I see 2017 westbrook and 2016 westbrook as the same player in different circunstances and 2016 westbrook had absurd impact in a monster 2016 thunder offense

Okc outscored and took warriors to 7 in 2016 despite a easily worse roster 3-7 than golden state (lets assume durant and curry played to a standstill which is probably not the case)

It takes a very specific team building and star archetype like durant to accomodate westbrook skillset with other stars, but the same is honestly true of draymond offense around curry

[Jaivl]

Very close comparison between two (ahem) top 25 peaks of this century.

Think I lean Westbrook. He has shown me enough as both a #1 (2016-2017) and #2 (2011-2015). Does Draymond get lazy if on a subpar team? Unmotivated Draymond is not too good of a player (see 2021).

Why though? Draymond is...

ATG post defender, ATG rim protector, ATG d-PM, GOAT lvl d-communication and versatility (pushing him at that Wilt, DROB, Nate level defensively, just behind the Duncan and KG).

He has great passing and is a great connector, and great hand-off guy. A great screen-setter and a good scorer.

Why is WB > Dray peak for peaks?

Peak 2016 Westbrook (which is pretty much an identical player to 2017) rates as pretty much equal or better to Durant on every impact signal, and that alleviates most of my concerns about him meshing on elite-level squads. Their net rating without the other was a very solid +5.5 for both, with Westbrook having a better offensive rating, and that's with opponents shooting sub-30% on 3s on the Durant ON Westbrook OFF minutes. His 112 ORTg when on court in 2017 is pretty elite as well, all things considered.

Like, it's fantastic that Green is great at all the small things on offense, but most of those are exactly that: small things. Westbrook is an A- tier primary passer, combined with an unstoppable driving ability, while being the most prolific transition player in the league, on both regular season and playoffs, which is massive even on his mediocre efficiency (1.05 ppp on average in 2016+2017). Those are big things. Ultimately, I'm pretty confident in leaving my title-contending offense on Westbrook's hands.

I'm not really taking Green's outlier shooting that year at face value. A small boost, sure, but I try to consider the player at a vacuum (as much as I can) when doing these things. If you consider his performance as it actually happened, then 16 Green is probably a better "season" than 17 Westbrook. I'm comparing them as players, though.

Oh, and I don't trust Green on anything below a "very good" team, at all. Not with his personality.

[Top10alltime]

Very close comparison between two (ahem) top 25 peaks of this century.

Think I lean Westbrook. He has shown me enough as both a #1 (2016-2017) and #2 (2011-2015). Does Draymond get lazy if on a subpar team? Unmotivated Draymond is not too good of a player (see 2021).

Why though? Draymond is...

ATG post defender, ATG rim protector, ATG d-PM, GOAT lvl d-communication and versatility (pushing him at that Wilt, DROB, Nate level defensively, just behind the Duncan and KG).

He has great passing and is a great connector, and great hand-off guy. A great screen-setter and a good scorer.

Why is WB > Dray peak for peaks?

Peak 2016 Westbrook (which is pretty much an identical player to 2017) rates as pretty much equal or better to Durant on every impact signal, and that alleviates most of my concerns about him meshing on elite-level squads. Their net rating without the other was a very solid +5.5 for both, with Westbrook having a better offensive rating, and that's with opponents shooting sub-30% on 3s on the Durant ON Westbrook OFF minutes. His 112 ORTg when on court in 2017 is pretty elite as well, all things considered.

Like, it's fantastic that Green is great at all the small things on offense, but most of those are exactly that: small things. Westbrook is an A- tier primary passer, combined with an unstoppable driving ability, while being the most prolific transition player in the league, on both regular season and playoffs, which is massive even on his mediocre efficiency (1.05 ppp on average in 2016+2017). Those are big things. Ultimately, I'm pretty confident in leaving my title-contending offense on Westbrook's hands.

I'm not really taking Green's outlier shooting that year at face value. A small boost, sure, but I try to consider the player at a vacuum (as much as I can) when doing these things. If you consider his performance as it actually happened, then 16 Green is probably a better "season" than 17 Westbrook. I'm comparing them as players, though.

Oh, and I don't trust Green on anything below a "very good" team, at all. Not with his personality.

What impact signals are you talking about? And, no he has more situational impact in 2017, just because he was on a worse team (KD is still better in 2017.

Well, we can say the same thing about Draymond and Westbrook defense. The difference is, Draymond is a top 10 defender all-time(lot like KG, just a bit worse at everything), while Westbrook is a fringe top 25 offensive force of all-time at BEST. While Westbrook on defense is still worse than Draymond on O. These are BIGGER things. Ultimately, I would take Draymond overall.

If we are talking outliers, that doesn't matter for peaks. Sure, it can matter for a 3 year stretch, but we are talking season v season, it doesn't matter if it's an outlier.

Don't trust Westbrook without the ball, at all. So there we go.

Anyways, unrelated, but may Christ bless you, and have an amazing life!

[homecourtloss]

As the best player on his team (the situation that gives people pause for him) in the early 2016 playoffs, Draymond gave me more reason for confidence than anything Westbrook has done as his team's best player. Presuming that the goal is to win a championship, I'd have to go with Draymond.

Not a bad point. I’d not been thinking of the fact that we did see a few playoff games of Draymond without Steph in 2016. In a sense, that’s a better data point than 2020, because it happened in the actual Draymond year in question (which is also a year I think he was significantly better in than he was in any other year). That said, it’s a small sample (6 games without Steph) and it was against teams that had below 1 SRS that year, so they were basically completely average teams.

I will note that we can actually expand that 2016-without-Curry sample a bit by adding the three regular season games that Steph missed and Draymond played. Combined with the playoff sample, we have 9 games with Draymond and no Steph and the Warriors went 6-3 with a +4.12 net rating. Their opponents in those 9 games averaged about a +0.77 regular-season net rating, so that’d be roughly a +4.89 relative net rating in 9 games. That’s not amazing, but it is actually good. I’d say it’s good enough that I’m definitely not certain peak Westbrook would’ve done better than that with that team. I’m still quite skeptical of the sample (9 games is still not a lot), but it’s definitely interesting to think about.

The underlined isn't outlier Draymond. 2017 was the same player. They both are pretty similar

2016 Draymond just has too many signals telling us he was at a level only clear GOAT candidates clearly supercede.

Draymond's 2016 Playoffs Without Curry

Entire playoffs: 359 minutes, +7.9 rORtg -8.9 rDRtg, +16.8 rNRtg

vs. Houston: 144 minutes: +7.0 rORtg, -14.9 rDRtg, +21.9 rNRtg
vs. Portland: 136 minutes: +8.2 rORtg, -.9 rDRtg, +9.1 rNRtg
vs. OK City: 29 minutes: -13.5 rORtg, -1.8 rDRtg, -11.7 rNRtg
vs. Cleveland: 52 minutes: +14.8 rORtg, -19.6 rDRtg, +34.4 rNRtg

People can say "Houston and Portland were average teams," and even if they are, players do NOT have these types of numbers, especially given that they played entire games without another great player whose minutes were replaced by a far, far lesser player as is the case when there are injuries. The sample is limited, but we have all of 2016 and then the playoffs when Draymond's massive impact was felt everywhere. Jokic, who was voted in already and some have as the second highest peak of all time, cannot say he has some of these numbers. That doesn't mean that Jokic is lower, not as good, etc., but these are ridiculous numbers.

[lessthanjake]

Not a bad point. I’d not been thinking of the fact that we did see a few playoff games of Draymond without Steph in 2016. In a sense, that’s a better data point than 2020, because it happened in the actual Draymond year in question (which is also a year I think he was significantly better in than he was in any other year). That said, it’s a small sample (6 games without Steph) and it was against teams that had below 1 SRS that year, so they were basically completely average teams.

I will note that we can actually expand that 2016-without-Curry sample a bit by adding the three regular season games that Steph missed and Draymond played. Combined with the playoff sample, we have 9 games with Draymond and no Steph and the Warriors went 6-3 with a +4.12 net rating. Their opponents in those 9 games averaged about a +0.77 regular-season net rating, so that’d be roughly a +4.89 relative net rating in 9 games. That’s not amazing, but it is actually good. I’d say it’s good enough that I’m definitely not certain peak Westbrook would’ve done better than that with that team. I’m still quite skeptical of the sample (9 games is still not a lot), but it’s definitely interesting to think about.

The underlined isn't outlier Draymond. 2017 was the same player. They both are pretty similar

2016 Draymond just has too many signals telling us he was at a level only clear GOAT candidates clearly supercede.

Draymond's 2016 Playoffs Without Curry

Entire playoffs: 359 minutes, +7.9 rORtg -8.9 rDRtg, +16.8 rNRtg

vs. Houston: 144 minutes: +7.0 rORtg, -14.9 rDRtg, +21.9 rNRtg
vs. Portland: 136 minutes: +8.2 rORtg, -.9 rDRtg, +9.1 rNRtg
vs. OK City: 29 minutes: -13.5 rORtg, -1.8 rDRtg, -11.7 rNRtg
vs. Cleveland: 52 minutes: +14.8 rORtg, -19.6 rDRtg, +34.4 rNRtg

People can say "Houston and Portland were average teams," and even if they are, players do NOT have these types of numbers, especially given that they played entire games without another great player whose minutes were replaced by a far, far lesser player as is the case when there are injuries. The sample is limited, but we have all of 2016 and then the playoffs when Draymond's massive impact was felt everywhere. Jokic, who was voted in already and some have as the second highest peak of all time, cannot say he has some of these numbers. That doesn't mean that Jokic is lower, not as good, etc., but these are ridiculous numbers.

Players have all kinds of numbers across 359-minute samples. It’s quite a small sample. Draymond was really great in 2016, but this is not the best evidence of it IMO. If we add the regular season numbers in, it starts to look like a okay-sized (but still small) sample, and Draymond’s non-Steph minutes still look great, though (the Warriors were +10.79 in 346 regular season minutes with Draymond and no Steph). And there’s other indications that Draymond was amazing that year. So I’m not sure I entirely disagree with your conclusion. I think Draymond had huge impact on that team. But I think that that 359-minute playoff sample is only a really small aspect of the evidence that leads me to that conclusion.

[lessthanjake]

As the best player on his team (the situation that gives people pause for him) in the early 2016 playoffs, Draymond gave me more reason for confidence than anything Westbrook has done as his team's best player. Presuming that the goal is to win a championship, I'd have to go with Draymond.

Not a bad point. I’d not been thinking of the fact that we did see a few playoff games of Draymond without Steph in 2016. In a sense, that’s a better data point than 2020, because it happened in the actual Draymond year in question (which is also a year I think he was significantly better in than he was in any other year). That said, it’s a small sample (6 games without Steph) and it was against teams that had below 1 SRS that year, so they were basically completely average teams.

I will note that we can actually expand that 2016-without-Curry sample a bit by adding the three regular season games that Steph missed and Draymond played. Combined with the playoff sample, we have 9 games with Draymond and no Steph and the Warriors went 6-3 with a +4.12 net rating. Their opponents in those 9 games averaged about a +0.77 regular-season net rating, so that’d be roughly a +4.89 relative net rating in 9 games. That’s not amazing, but it is actually good. I’d say it’s good enough that I’m definitely not certain peak Westbrook would’ve done better than that with that team. I’m still quite skeptical of the sample (9 games is still not a lot), but it’s definitely interesting to think about.

The underlined isn't outlier Draymond. 2017 was the same player. They both are pretty similar

No, I think there’s good indication Draymond was significantly better in 2016. For one thing, 2016 is the one prime year where he actually shot well from three-point range (38.8%, compared to 30.8% the next year). This is a really big deal, because there’s a massive difference offensively between a guy who spaces the floor by shooting almost 40% from three, and a guy who you can just leave open all the time because he isn’t a good enough shooter to reliably punish you. That’s genuinely a night and day thing for an offense. Draymond still wasn’t a super dynamic offensive player or anything, but stretching the floor and being a good decision-maker/passer actually made him a significant positive offensively that year, in a way that he wasn’t any other year.

And essentially any impact data you look at will back that up. For instance, his O-RAPTOR is over twice as high in 2016 as it was any other year. His O-EPM was exactly twice as high as his next best year (and a lot of his years were negative). His O-LEBRON was also twice as high as his next best year. And his O-DPM was over twice as high. His 1-year TheBasketballDatabase O-RAPM was also over twice as high as his next best year (though one-year RAPM on its own is noisy, so I don’t value this much). Pure box data also concurs with this. His O-BPM in 2016 was also over twice as high as his next best year (and, again, as with many of these measures, he was often a negative).

Draymond was genuinely like twice as good on offense in 2016 as he was in any other year (and some data suggests he was more than twice as good). I could maybe be convinced that he was a tiny bit better on defense in 2017 than in 2016, but it’s definitely not enough to overcome how much better he was offensively in 2016. I think the overall picture is that 2016 Draymond was genuinely probably a whole tier better as a player in 2016 than he was in any other year. His best years otherwise were probably 2017 and 2015 (in that order), with the rest of his years being a quite significant drop-off from those years.

[homecourtloss]

The underlined isn't outlier Draymond. 2017 was the same player. They both are pretty similar

2016 Draymond just has too many signals telling us he was at a level only clear GOAT candidates clearly supercede.

Draymond's 2016 Playoffs Without Curry

Entire playoffs: 359 minutes, +7.9 rORtg -8.9 rDRtg, +16.8 rNRtg

vs. Houston: 144 minutes: +7.0 rORtg, -14.9 rDRtg, +21.9 rNRtg
vs. Portland: 136 minutes: +8.2 rORtg, -.9 rDRtg, +9.1 rNRtg
vs. OK City: 29 minutes: -13.5 rORtg, -1.8 rDRtg, -11.7 rNRtg
vs. Cleveland: 52 minutes: +14.8 rORtg, -19.6 rDRtg, +34.4 rNRtg

People can say "Houston and Portland were average teams," and even if they are, players do NOT have these types of numbers, especially given that they played entire games without another great player whose minutes were replaced by a far, far lesser player as is the case when there are injuries. The sample is limited, but we have all of 2016 and then the playoffs when Draymond's massive impact was felt everywhere. Jokic, who was voted in already and some have as the second highest peak of all time, cannot say he has some of these numbers. That doesn't mean that Jokic is lower, not as good, etc., but these are ridiculous numbers.

Players have all kinds of numbers across 359-minute samples. It’s quite a small sample.

Does Jokic in the playoffs? Do these other players have playoffs series played mostly without the other best player leading to these numbers AND a regular season like Draymond's AND a Finals series like his including game 7? You're waiving away a lot.