NBA: Still waiting for posters to name me 10 players better than Kevin Love in the league,

[Raven]

Not totally. he does benefit from the attention that he draws but Green is more important to their team than Klay. he murders teams when he plays pnr with steph or if they trap Curry. his ability to hit 3's the mid range and pass high low is a thing of beauty.

oh boy....

[Killakobe81]

oh boy....

He is. Not even saying he is the better player ....just that he is more essential to what they do. But maybe he is their 2nd best player especoally against elite teams

[100%duncan]

Not totally. he does benefit from the attention that he draws but Green is more important to their team than Klay. he murders teams when he plays pnr with steph or if they trap Curry. his ability to hit 3's the mid range and pass high low is a thing of beauty.

Dude, he is a product of Curry. He wont be as good as he was if he wasnt getting open cuts, open 3's without the gravity that Curry demands from the opposing team's defense. And his defense is overrated against real bigs who can shoot over him or overpower him

[Killakobe81]

Agree curry sucks the defense but you still have to make them pay. Lebron has also has a strong gravitational pull ...but Love does not punish teams the way Green does which is the point. Curry is amazing and would be so without Green ...Green wouldnt be as effective without Curry but gets credit for thriving and developing in the role. He is like John Taylor getting the benefit of the double coverage on Jerry Rice. But i dont think he will be as bad as Alvin Harper was when he left Dallas if Green played elsewhere ... and though I hate the niners Taylor became a good player in his own right. And no it wasnt just Rice or even the Walsh system.

[Leetonidas]

OP consistently has ty takes,,,,

[DAF86]

oh boy....

Dude, that's pretty much a given by now.

[Raven]

He is. Not even saying he is the better player ....just that he is more essential to what they do. But maybe he is their 2nd best player especoally against elite teams

oh please.

[Raven]

Dude, that's pretty much a given by now.

lol.

[DAF86]

oh boy....

oh please.

lol.

Do they charge you by the word?

[Raven]

Do they charge you by the word?

when the thesis is too dumb, yes. Klay is easily the best sg in the league and Draymond barely 10 points Green is supposed to be more important? Give me a break.

[Killakobe81]

when the thesis is too dumb, yes. Klay is easily the best sg in the league and Draymond barely 10 points Green is supposed to be more important? Give me a break.

Not a better player. Just more important to their current style. Klay is probably the top SG and Green is not the top PF or a great scorer but that doesn't mean that his role is not vitally important.

[Raven]

Not a better player. Just more important to their current style. Klay is probably the top SG and Green is not the top PF or a great scorer but that doesn't mean that his role is not vitally important.

it still doesn't work. You say draymond is helped by Curry's 3point shooting? well there has been many shooters in this era,the reason why the warriors are where they are, is because of curry AND klay. Just one, doesn't make them great, the two of them both ridiculous shooters and good to great defenders create the pairing that allow them to play the way they do. You can argue Bogut's importance but Draymond is on the same level as Harrison Barnes, both are replaceable and wouldn't do even close to the same damage as they do with the warriors. frankly, Draymond would be a nobody if even just bogut wasn't there.

[JoeTait75]

If Klay went down the Warriors would still have the depth there to make it work anyway, IMO. But if they lost Draymond, who can duplicate what he does for them?

[DAF86]

when the thesis is too dumb, yes. Klay is easily the best sg in the league and Draymond barely 10 points Green is supposed to be more important? Give me a break.

lol

[100%duncan]

And yes Green is the 2nd most important Warrior. But he's a product of curry.

[Killakobe81]

Here is a small sampling of folks that disagree with Raven ...

http://www.sportingnews.com/nba-news...arriors-record

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/14...-stephen-curry

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...s-best-center/

Samples from above ...

For comparison’s sake, the only three seasons previously recorded of a player averaging at least seven rebounds, seven assists, a steal and a block per game were recorded by LeBron James in the three years prior to his first departure from Cleveland.


Fancy Stats
Warriors power forward Draymond Green is the NBA’s best center
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By Seth Partnow December 2, 2015

Draymond Green is the second most important player on the Warriors. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
With the Golden State Warriors starting 19-0, Stephen Curry is running away with his quest for a second consecutive MVP award. And there can be little question that, this season at least, the second best and next most important Golden State player has been Draymond Green. At his current level of play, Green is in the running for All-NBA selection, and in fact has an argument to make the first team. As a center.

This is a far cry from the player who entered the league as a second round tweener, not quick enough to play the three, not quite big enough to be a front line four. But through his own development, the league’s increasing devotion to mobility and shooting from all spots on the floor, and his unduplicatable fit within Golden State’s fast and furious system, he has gone beyond smallball power forward to become arguably the most dominant big man in the NBA this season.

While Green’s traditional stats might seem pedestrian at first glance, that is mostly a result of his relatively low 13.2 points per game. Add in the 8.1 rebounds, 7.1 assists (good for 7th in the league), 2.5 combined steals and blocks, and 40 percent three-point shooting and the raw numbers become more impressive. Further taking into account his role as the fulcrum of the Warriors’ fifth-rated defense, a rating which quite possibly understates their defensive chops given the sheer amount of garbage time played a team outscoring opponents by nearly 17 points per 100 possessions and his play becomes even more laudable. But all that has been achieved with Green playing a mix of power forward and center.

Among players with at least 100 minutes spent at center this season, Green’s production sums to plus-10.8 points per 36 according to Daily RAPM Estimate, or DRE, a weighted measure of box score stats. To put that number in context, Curry is the overall league leader (by a wide margin) in DRE with a plus-11.1 rating. As the biggest Warrior on the floor, on this measure of primarily offensive production, Green has contributed at a similar rate to Curry.



(stats via Nylon Calculus position splits and NBA.com play-by-play logs.)


For comparison’s sake, the only three seasons previously recorded of a player averaging at least seven rebounds, seven assists, a steal and a block per game were recorded by LeBron James in the three years prior to his first departure from Cleveland.


Turning Green loose at center as part of the Golden State’s lineup turns him into a sort of modern day Oscar Robertson. This combination of defense, rebounding and playmaking is completely unprecedented. No player in NBA history has averaged more than 5.5 assists while also averaging as many as even two blocks per game. Even playing nearly 80 percent of his minutes at power forward (and thus spending more time away from the hoop), Green is 12th in per game rim protection value. He is second to only James in playmaking usage among non-point guards, with teammates shooting at an effective 69.7 percent clip on his assist chances.

[100%duncan]

Here is a small sampling of folks that disagree with Raven ...

http://www.sportingnews.com/nba-news...arriors-record

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/14...-stephen-curry

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...s-best-center/

Samples from above ...

For comparison’s sake, the only three seasons previously recorded of a player averaging at least seven rebounds, seven assists, a steal and a block per game were recorded by LeBron James in the three years prior to his first departure from Cleveland.


Fancy Stats
Warriors power forward Draymond Green is the NBA’s best center
Resize Text Print Article Comments 0

By Seth Partnow December 2, 2015

Draymond Green is the second most important player on the Warriors. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)
With the Golden State Warriors starting 19-0, Stephen Curry is running away with his quest for a second consecutive MVP award. And there can be little question that, this season at least, the second best and next most important Golden State player has been Draymond Green. At his current level of play, Green is in the running for All-NBA selection, and in fact has an argument to make the first team. As a center.

This is a far cry from the player who entered the league as a second round tweener, not quick enough to play the three, not quite big enough to be a front line four. But through his own development, the league’s increasing devotion to mobility and shooting from all spots on the floor, and his unduplicatable fit within Golden State’s fast and furious system, he has gone beyond smallball power forward to become arguably the most dominant big man in the NBA this season.

While Green’s traditional stats might seem pedestrian at first glance, that is mostly a result of his relatively low 13.2 points per game. Add in the 8.1 rebounds, 7.1 assists (good for 7th in the league), 2.5 combined steals and blocks, and 40 percent three-point shooting and the raw numbers become more impressive. Further taking into account his role as the fulcrum of the Warriors’ fifth-rated defense, a rating which quite possibly understates their defensive chops given the sheer amount of garbage time played a team outscoring opponents by nearly 17 points per 100 possessions and his play becomes even more laudable. But all that has been achieved with Green playing a mix of power forward and center.

Among players with at least 100 minutes spent at center this season, Green’s production sums to plus-10.8 points per 36 according to Daily RAPM Estimate, or DRE, a weighted measure of box score stats. To put that number in context, Curry is the overall league leader (by a wide margin) in DRE with a plus-11.1 rating. As the biggest Warrior on the floor, on this measure of primarily offensive production, Green has contributed at a similar rate to Curry.



(stats via Nylon Calculus position splits and NBA.com play-by-play logs.)


For comparison’s sake, the only three seasons previously recorded of a player averaging at least seven rebounds, seven assists, a steal and a block per game were recorded by LeBron James in the three years prior to his first departure from Cleveland.


Turning Green loose at center as part of the Golden State’s lineup turns him into a sort of modern day Oscar Robertson. This combination of defense, rebounding and playmaking is completely unprecedented. No player in NBA history has averaged more than 5.5 assists while also averaging as many as even two blocks per game. Even playing nearly 80 percent of his minutes at power forward (and thus spending more time away from the hoop), Green is 12th in per game rim protection value. He is second to only James in playmaking usage among non-point guards, with teammates shooting at an effective 69.7 percent clip on his assist chances.

You dont need numbers tbh. Just look at the playoffs where that got self proclaimed best sg in the league always disappears.

[Raven]

If Klay went down the Warriors would still have the depth there to make it work anyway, IMO. But if they lost Draymond, who can duplicate what he does for them?

like who? igoudala?

[DAF86]

like who? igoudala?

Brandon Rush. Any folk that can hit threes basically. It would obviously not be the same but they would be allright. Now, who would you replace Green with to mantain more or less the same playing style?

[Killakobe81]

Green is like a hybrid of Marion for the SSOL Suns and the Spurs version of Diaw. He gives you play-making, defense and because of a unique role on defense ... would the toughest to replace on that team outside of the star PG.

[Raven]

Brandon Rush. Any folk that can hit threes basically. It would obviously not be the same but they would be allright. Now, who would you replace Green with to mantain more or less the same playing style?

brandon rush last year was a .111 3pt shooter Igoudala is just as bad as a shooter.. Green's role can be covered by iggy, speights, mcadoo, barnes, thompson or whatever.. i mean it starts and it ends with the shooters, green just needs to go for rebounds and pass the ball, nothing that challenging.

[DAF86]

brandon rush last year was a .111 3pt shooter Igoudala is just as bad as a shooter.. Green's role can be covered by iggy, speights, mcadoo, barnes, thompson or whatever.. i mean it starts and it ends with the shooters, green just needs to go for rebounds and pass the ball, nothing that challenging.

So? This year he is a ing 45% 3pt shooter. Why the would you post last season's stats?

You don't like Rush? start Barbosa then or sign Ray Allen's corpse. I don't give a .

What Draymond Green does for the Warriors is a lot more important and more difficult to replace than what Thompson does. , switch Thompson for Kyle ing Korver and the Warriors would probably be just as good. Meanwhile to replace Green and have the team intact the Warriors would need to get someone like Lebron.

[ambchang]

Which is unfortunate because I think LeBron and Kyrie- especially Kyrie- would thrive in that type of offense.

Ideally LeBron would do for the Cavaliers what Draymond does for Golden State but he has no interest in being that kind of player.

I agree, but I am not sure how receptive the Kang will be of that arrangement.

The thing is, I am not sure if the Cavs are running their current offense due to Blatt or Lebron. I somehow get the feeling that Lebron is like the Larry Brown of players. A genius, best of all time, talent in his own discipline (playing for Lebron, coaching for Brown), but just over-exert his own influence in other areas (coaching and personnel for Lebron, personnel for Brown) and end up harming themselves in the process.

[Killakobe81]

I agree, but I am not sure how receptive the Kang will be of that arrangement.

The thing is, I am not sure if the Cavs are running their current offense due to Blatt or Lebron. I somehow get the feeling that Lebron is like the Larry Brown of players. A genius, best of all time, talent in his own discipline (playing for Lebron, coaching for Brown), but just over-exert his own influence in other areas (coaching and personnel for Lebron, personnel for Brown) and end up harming themselves in the process.

good analogy.

[ambchang]

when the thesis is too dumb, yes. Klay is easily the best sg in the league and Draymond barely 10 points Green is supposed to be more important? Give me a break.

In the Warriors scheme, Green > Klay and I don't even thing that is arguable.

Green has a ORtg of 116 and DRtg of 99, Klay sits at 111/106.

VORP/WS/WS-48/OPBM/DPBM/BPM

Green: 3.0 / 6.4 / .21 / 2.7/3.4/6.4
Klay: 0.8/4.1/0.145/2.3/-2/0.3

Green is the much better creator and honestly, it's not even close. Sure he thrives in that system and may not be as good a player as Klay (I have my doubts as to how well Klay can perform without Curry), but in the system, Green is undoubtedly more valuable, and it's not even close.