Draymond Green breaks down his shot at Defensive Player of the Year award
Draymond Green is nothing if not unplugged.
Not to mention occasionally unhinged.
Luckily for the Warriors, their 27-year-old, two-time All-Star forward is more than that: defender, playmaker, scorer, and fiery leader for the team that – even without Kevin Durant since Feb. 28 – still boasts the league’s top record (59-14).
But as the Warriors embark on a brutal stretch that will test his versatile skillset – Tuesday at Houston (51-22, third in the West), Wednesday at San Antonio (56-16, second in the West), Friday at home against Houston, Sunday at home against Washington (45-28, third in the East) – the timing seemed right to hand Green the microphone on one specific matter: his three-year push to win the league’s Defensive Player of the Year award.
From his childhood in Saginaw, Mich. spent listening to his first defensive coach – his Uncle, Benny Babers – to those evenings watching the Detroit Pistons, later forming a friendship with one of his favorite “Bad Boys,” Joe Dumars, to his four years with coach Tom Izzo at Michigan State, Green has defined himself as a defender. So, yes, he cares deeply about winning this award.
“Coming into the league, I knew that if I wanted to get on the floor, it had to be defense,” Green, who was taken with the 35th pick in the 2012 draft, told USA TODAY Sports last week. “There are a million ways to affect the game. But we all know that you can't win without this defensive end of the ball, so just really understanding that and watching all those teams (growing up), the successful teams like the Pistons teams, a successful program like Michigan State, it's all based on the defensive end. So really just knowing that if I'm going to do everything that I want to do, which is only win, that it has to be done on that end of the floor.”
Latest NBA news:
LeBron says he 'feels great,' but Cavs don't look it
Lakers' family feud ends with Jeanie Buss as controlling owner
Race to the bottom: Making sense of NBA draft lottery odds, protected picks
Yet of all the NBA’s regular season accolades, few are more of an inexact science than DPOY. The days of blocks, rebounds and steals serving as the total statistical analysis have long since passed, with the rapid advancement of defensive analytics painting a much clearer picture of defensive impact. But there’s still no stat to gauge heart, or effort level, or old-fashioned pride, and so the methods of determining who’s the best remain somewhat murky.
If Green had to argue why he – not contenders like Utah big man Rudy Gobert or back-to-back winner Kawhi Leonard of San Antonio – should finally be seen as the NBA’s top defender, how would he justify it?
“I think when you're looking at it, you're looking at numbers; you're looking at the eye test, I think you're looking at wins and losses; I think you're judging all those things,” Green said. “You're looking at how a team is when a guy is on the floor as opposed to how they are when a guy is off the floor. I think you're looking at how a guy can control or alter or changes games or win games from that side of the floor. If I'm a guy voting on it, and that's the thing that I'm looking at, how is what this guy does translate to winning.
“You can block shots (Gobert leads the league at 2.61 per game). That doesn't mean you're dominating a game. You can get steals (Green leads the league at 2.09 per game; Leonard is sixth at 1.83). That doesn't mean you're dominating a game. But there are some numbers that just don't lie. When you start looking at plus-minus, and all the stuff like that, percentages of guys being scored on - at what percent are they stopping their guy? How are they helping the defense, their (defensive) ratings...With all this stuff now that we can judge, and advanced metrics now and all these different things, I think they all help.”
Latest NBA power rankings:
Week 21 NBA power rankings: Celtics move past Cavaliers into top four
Week 21 NBA MVP race: James Harden holds steady at the top
In this coming week, Green has a chance to highlight his candidacy.
The Warriors’ lockdown artist will face some of the league’s most dynamic offensive talents, including the Rockets’ James Harden, Leonard and fringe MVP candidate John Wall of the Wizards. He'll also share the floor with fellow elite defenders like Leonard and the Rockets’ Patrick Beverley (who has called himself "The best defensive player in the league.")
Green has all the momentum in this race for three reasons.
The narrative
Not only are the Warriors on the heels of the Spurs for the top defensive rating in the NBA (101 points allowed per 100 possessions v. 100.7), but they’ve somehow been even better since Durant went down with his left knee injury (99.8 in those 13 games). Considering Durant was the Warriors’ best rim protector, this reflects well on Green. Another factor? This isn’t the first time Green has proven capable of this kind of heavy lifting.
After playing alongside Andrew Bogut for the past four years, Green has disproved the many observers who wondered if the big man’s departure (via trade to Dallas last summer) might mean the Warriors’ days of being elite defensively were done. Alas, the evolution – both pre-and-post Durant injury – has been seamless.
“When you take someone like KD off, for what he means to this team on both ends of the floor, it's definitely shocking that the numbers would be a little better without him,” Green admitted. “That’s definitely a shocker, because I think our defense is damn good with him also.”
The on-off debate, and the mystery of Leonard’s number
Of all the numbers that carry weight in the defensive debate, the on-off figure is impossible to ignore because of what it reflects: team success, or failure, when a particular player is on the floor. This is where the debate gets downright strange because one of these stats simply doesn’t look right.
The Warriors allow 6.2 fewer points per 100 possessions with Green on the floor and the Jazz allow seven points per 100 fewer with Gobert, but the Spurs allow 7.9 points more per 100 when Leonard is playing this season. It’s a truly odd development, especially considering the Spurs were significantly better with Leonard on the floor the past two seasons. And regardless of how you explain it, there’s simply no way it helps Leonard’s case for a third consecutive DPOY honor.
“That's weird,” Green said of the oddity that is Leonard’s numbers. “I don't know what to think about that, because when you look at Kawhi, you know he's a good defender. Honestly, I don't know how to judge that.”
The versatility factor
Make no mistake, Gobert is a modern-day Bill Russell. But in today’s NBA, with teams shooting from three-point range at an unprecedented rate and the small-ball phenomenon demanding that teams have multiple defenders who guard multiple positions, Green is the perfect prototype.
He’ll track a perimeter threat like Harden from the wing to the rim one minute, then bang with a Blake Griffin type the next.
“No disrespect, but I think when you look at today's game, the object is to actually stop the three, as opposed to not giving up a two,” Green said. “So you have to be able to do multiple things."
“That's kind of the way I look at it. Like I said, Rudy is great at what he does, and I think he has changed games. But I think this is, like you said, a guard-heavy league and being able to switch onto guards and being able to defend one through five, just being able to play no matter who's out there on the floor, and you're not at a disadvantage, I think it helps.”
Follow USA TODAY Sports' Sam Amick on Twitter @Sam_Amick.