Golden State Warriors: Has Draymond Green become underrated?

What makes Draymond Green special

The claim that Green is a glorified role player is absurdly inaccurate. Not only is Draymond physically gifted enough to defend the worlds best athletes, but his knowledge of the game is off the charts. He is a defensive mastermind and anchors the defense for the best basketball team in the world.

Furthermore, Dray provides versatile playmaking to the Warriors offense. Green is currently averaging a career-high 7.9 assists. This places him at sixth place on the NBA’s assist per game leader and gives him the highest mark of any non-point guard.

To round out the rest of his game, Draymond averages 7.6 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.8 steals a night. Sure, those numbers might not seem like much at first, but let’s add some more context to them.

In the history of the league, only four non-guard players have recorded an average of 7+ points, 7+ rebounds, 7+ assists and 1+ steals per game. These players are Larry Bird, LeBron James, Grant Hill and Draymond Green.

Green has accomplished this feat in three straight seasons and is on pace to do it for the fourth time. The only other player to achieve this for that many consecutive seasons is LeBron James, who averaged 28.7 points, 7.6 rebounds and 7.5 assists over the course of four seasons.

It is clear that Draymond Green is in an exclusive club when it comes to players his size and versatility. It’s about time that Green receives the respect he deserves.