The regular season awards are beginning to be announced, and Draymond Green found himself on the NBA’s All-Defensive second team.
The Warriors’ 2017-18 regular season was a weird one as a combination of injuries and some lackadaisical play caused them to slip to the second seed in the Western Conference with a record of 58-24.
Draymond Green admitted that he wasn’t playing as well as he could have this season, and as a result he fell to second team All-Defense after winning the Defensive Player of the Year Award last year.
According to Shams Charania, here are the two All-Defensive squads:
First team: Rudy Gobert, Anthony Davis, Victor Oladipo, Jrue Holiday, Robert Covington.
Second team: Joel Embiid, Draymond Green, Al Horford, Dejounte Murray, Jimmy Butler.
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Draymond finished the year with 1.3 blocks and 1.4 steals per game. He ranked fifth among the NBA’s power forwards and 20th among all players in defensive real plus-minus at +2.94.
He finished the year with 3.4 defensive win shares, and his defensive box plus-minus was +2.7.
While these numbers would be career years for other players in the NBA, nearly all of them are down from Green’s Defensive Player of the Year campaign last season.
Anthony Davis and Rudy Gobert were both deserving of being ahead of Draymond in these ballots as each of them ranked in the top six among all players in defensive real plus-minus.
Draymond has turned the intensity up on the defensive end in the playoffs, but that performance doesn’t count towards these regular season awards.
Next: Draymond Green’s Resurgence has been Key to the Warriors’ Success
Green probably won’t even put this award in his trophy case at home as he is fully focused on adding a third championship ring to his collection.