Taking a look at current era Draymond Green's impact on the court

Saturday's blowout loss to the Lakers made it impossible to ignore what the numbers have shown about Draymond Green.

On Saturday night, the Warriors were blown out by the Los Angeles Lakers. It was an unremarkable game, in that the healthier and more talented team opened up a 30-point lead and cruised to victory. And yet it was symptomatic of an issue that has plagued this team for some time now, and is finally being discussed amongst the fanbase with the frankness it merits.

For so many years, Draymond Green has been the heart and soul of the Warriors dynasty. His unparalleled defensive brilliance, willingness to sacrifice shots on offense, and preternatural passing vision were the most tangible contributions to the great Dubs teams of the past 12 years. But it was his competitive fire that might have been the most important. On a team led by a 6’3” baby-faced assassin, with steely but reserved competitors like Kevin Durant, Shaun Livingston, Andre Iguodala, and Klay Thompson, and lighthearted role players like Mo Speights, Leandro Barbosa, and JaVale McGee, Draymond’s toughness, brashness, and self-assuredness were rare gifts and vital emotional diversity. The team relied on Draymond to intimidate opponents and inspire their own confidence. It was a role he eagerly accepted, but paid for with his reputation, as casual fans failed to appreciate his basketball skills and he became a league-wide villain for the way he comported himself in service of the Dubs’ championship aspirations.

He forced Warriors fans to defend him against scorn and hate from the other 29 fanbases, to maybe justify some really debatable things. And to be fair, sometimes his reputation was fairly earned. But it was all worth it because when paired with Steph Curry, the Warriors were unstoppable (baby). Draymond affected winning at a level few players have ever matched.

Unfortunately, the past few months have made it clear that he isn’t the same force he used to be. And more damaging is that he’s no longer playing with the same fire and drive that amplified his talents and lifted the rest of the team. This was laid bare against the Lakers last night.

A season or two ago, on either the Dunc’d On Podcast or as a guest on Warriors +/-, Nate Duncan observed that Draymond’s defense wasn’t quite as good as it used to be because his vertical athleticism had taken a hit. As someone who firmly believes he’s the best defender I’ve ever seen and should be in consideration as the best defender in NBA history, I refused to acknowledge this decline, dismissing it as just another example of Nate being a pessimistic analyst. I really wanted Draymond to win one more DPOY award, to justify my esteem for him and solidify his place in the history books.

But it looks like Nate was right. The brain is still there, but the burst is lacking. And that’s only on the defensive end. While his offensive skill set was always a little better than the most vocal critics and backpack memes suggested, his lack of urgency to do anything besides take threes and attempt to throw backdoor cuts is seriously hampering the team.

In contrast, a similarly weak shooter in Gary Payton II managed to make a sizable offensive impact against the Lakers, particularly in the second quarter. When the entire team was struggling to hit shots, GPII’s cutting and finishing inside briefly gave the Warriors life. Draymond is not a complete scrub — he scored 32 points in an NBA Finals Game 7, has one of the better handles on the team, and his mid-range game still flashes. But his three-point shot feels irreparably broken, and he continues to heave them up in a stubborn attempt to preserve the concept of spacing.

In reality, opponents are urging him to shoot. Nuggets head coach David Adelman suggested that Draymond being a late scratch was the reason the Warriors won their recent matchup, because Denver had game-planned around leaving Draymond open and couldn’t react fast enough when Al Horford started making outside shots. If Draymond were willing to completely abandon outside shots — to work harder as a cutter, to plant himself in the dunker’s spot more often instead of his preferred perch on the perimeter — maybe he could become a positive offensive player again. Against Los Angeles, he went 1-of-6 on jump shots but 2-of-2 at the rim. The math is not subtle.

Unfortunately, any hope of a change feels like a pipe dream. As of right now, the team looks significantly better without him, and it’s showing up in the standings.

The last time Draymond was active for a Warriors win was February 9th against the Grizzlies. Since then, the only victories Golden State has managed to secure — in a stretch without Steph — have come without Draymond in the lineup. And every time he’s returned, admittedly against better competition, the Dubs lose.

Now, it can’t all be Dray’s fault. He’s been a winning player for too long to pin all of this on him. But the correlation is starting to become too strong to ignore, and at some point causation is going to have to be considered.

Going further: wins and losses are a binary way to analyze a complex system. For the first time since his rookie season, the Warriors are demonstrably worse with Draymond on the court versus when he rests.

The biggest indictment might be that he’s dragging down the impact god Steph Curry. Lineups with both Steph and Draymond on the court are actually performing worse than lineups without either, even when accounting for shooting luck. It’s nearly impossible to sabotage Steph’s impact to that degree — it was a huge reason the Warriors moved on from James Wiseman. If you can’t play with Steph…

But the most critical aspect of Draymond’s recent play is that he just doesn’t seem to be trying. It’s somewhat understandable given the team’s lower ceiling and Steph’s absence, but those are exactly the moments the Warriors need Dray to step up most. On Saturday night, he seemed completely disinterested. His superpower used to be his will to win. It made him and this team so much better. Right now, it’s nowhere to be found.

The rest of the contest was unfortunately predictable. The Lakers had the three best offensive players on the floor by a staggering margin — no active Warrior is even averaging 13 points a game this season — plus the most efficient shooter in the NBA in Luke Kennard. When LeBron James starts looking like Steph Curry from three (he hit his first four triples in a row), you simply aren’t going to compete.

The Lakers have plenty of issues of their own, but as Tim Legler highlighted on the broadcast, the Warriors don’t have the specific skills necessary to attack those weaknesses. Legler mentioned LA’s difficulty with blow-bys in isolation and helping against pick-and-rolls, but the Dubs couldn’t muster enough of a threat in either play type. It doesn’t help when the Warriors’ best creator De’Anthony Melton can’t buy a shot at the rim, and the barrage of three-point attempts the Warriors take to compensate for their talent deficit aren’t falling.

On defense, the Warriors were too small and not strong enough to hold LeBron, Luka Dončić, and Austin Reaves in check. This crossover by Reaves highlighted the gap between the Warriors’ best ball-handlers and true offensive stars — it seems like no healthy Golden State player has made a move like that all season.

They actually did a decent job on Luka in the first half, holding him to 10 points. But after halftime Moses Moody kept going under screens to account for Luka’s size and strength advantages, and it was a wrap. Gui Santos and GPII generated their usual dose of deflections — the kind that doomed the Grizzlies last game — but against the Lakers no Warrior could ever secure the loose ball.

The one silver lining to an otherwise dismal affair was the aforementioned Gui Santos. After signing a brand-new $15 million extension earlier in the day, Gui led the team in scoring and continued to be an all-around contributor. There was some particularly nice synergy between Gui and the broadcast during the third quarter. With the game out of reach, Mike Breen spent a few moments discussing Santos’ journey, his new contract, and extolling his growth as a player. As if on cue, Gui took the ball to the rim multiple times, displaying his point-guard pedigree and poise in the lane.

Also worth noting was the debut of Nate Williams, who scored his first Warriors points and made garbage time a little more interesting with his effort and scoring. Otherwise, missing their four best players and unable to find any shooting luck, this was a game to move on from quickly and erase from the memory banks. Far more difficult to ignore may be the end of the line for the Warriors’ emotional engine.