The List Of 50+ Players Who Are Better Than Draymond Green

May 5, 2020

5 Min Read

As time passes, Draymond Green will go down as one of the best Role Players of All-Time. He’s long been considered as a top 50, sometimes top 20 player in the league during the Warriors run as a dynasty.

Contents

Players who are better than Draymond Green (per team):
Debatable

That time is officially up. This season has revealed a lot about where Draymond truly stands amongst the league’s best. Don’t get me wrong, we’ll likely see him return to being the Draymond we’ve grown used once Steph Curry and Klay Thompson return next season.

In a recent interview with Showtime’s All the Smoke, hosted by Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, Draymond stated that he hears the comments/criticism regarding his play this year and is motivated by it. Even then, seeing him get his outside shooting back (under 31% for the past 4 seasons) is something that may be a miracle to witness. He’ll be the great screener, rebounder, passer, and elite defender that we knew, but he may never become an above-average scorer again.

These past 2 seasons have been Draymond’s most inefficient seasons since he’s become a full-time starter (this season in particular). He’s scoring at a lower clip than in his All-Star seasons, his shooting percentages (both from the field and from 3) have dropped, and even his rebound and assist numbers have gone down… all while playing around 30 minutes a game.

We witnessed Draymond at his best the season before Kevin Durant came into town. In that season (‘15-’16), Draymond averaged 14.0 points, 9.5 rebounds, and 7.4 assists on 49.0% shooting from the field and 38.8% shooting from 3. All of those numbers are career-high averages for Draymond, even steal and block numbers are career-highs that season (2.0 steals, 1.4 blocks). The effect of Kevin Durant was evident as all of Draymond’s numbers went on a steady decline with Durant’s addition.

During the ‘18-’19 playoffs, we saw moments of Draymond’s brilliance return. In the Warriors’ Conference Finals sweep of the Portland Trail Blazers, Draymond averaged 16.5 points, 11.8 rebounds, 8.8 assists, 2.3 steals, and 2.8 rebounds while shooting 54.2% from the field. This was the best version of Draymond that we’ve ever seen. This was a reminder to the league that Draymond was a 3x Champ, 3x All-Star, 1x DPOY, 1x Steals Champ, 2x All-NBA selection, and 5x All-Defensive selection.

This ‘19-’20 then brought us, and Draymond, back down to earth with 8.0 points, 6.2 rebounds and 6.2 assists per game.

This season could’ve been Draymond’s way of showing the league that he’s not just a role player, he’s truly an All-Star. Instead, we saw him have arguably his worst season. With this season and Draymond now past 30-years old, we can only assume his decline is beginning.

Below will be a list of 50+ players that are ahead of Draymond (some debatable), leaving him with some work to do re-climb the ranks in the NBA. Draymond may seriously fall outside the top 60 if he doesn’t have a serious bounce-back next season.