The Golden State Warriors rattled off three championships in five years behind some of the greatest 3-point shooting lineups of all time. Yet, Draymond Green managed to be a pivotal member of these teams despite never truly being a shooter.
Green was not drilling step-back 3-pointers like his MVP partner but his fingerprints were still all over the game. His versatility as a defender and playmaker made Green the driving force behind much of Golden State’s success.
And, he still does many of those same things today. He averaged a career-high 8.9 assists last year and is dishing 7.0 this season. What’s more, Green has kept the Warriors competent and sometimes even elite on defense over the last two seasons.
Even so, there is one thing that has changed about Green, seemingly out of nowhere. He was once a reliable 3-point shooter, albeit a limited one. Then, Green stopped making them altogether.
Draymond Green is not the 3-point shooter he used to be and he recently explained why his role with the Golden State Warriors has changed.
Of 166 NBA players to play at least 150 total minutes this season, Green ranks 142nd in 3-pointers made. To make this worse, 11 players on this list haven’t even made a 3-pointer yet this year.
However, Green has made 3-of-5 attempts (60 percent) which is drastically better than the sub-30 percent clip he has been shooting with since 2018. Of course, when you compare this to his peak scoring years, something has clearly gone wrong for Green.
Green’s best shooting season came in 2015-16 when he 38.8 percent of his 258 3-point attempts. While his efficiency dropped off in the next two seasons, he still attempted 250+ in each year. This trend would not continue as Green’s attempts have plummeted in the four years since.
From 2015-2018, Green jacked up 777 total 3-point attempts. Since then, Green has attempted just 425 total 3-pointers and his efficiency has fallen below 30 percent.
“A wise man once told me: If you don’t use something, you lose it,” Green told Anthony Slater of The Athletic.
Green blames the sudden disappearance of his jump shot on a less-sudden trend of not shooting 3-pointers. From the moment Kevin Durant joined the Warriors in 2017, the need for Green to shoot the ball slowly phased out. By the time the Warriors sunk to a lottery team and bounced back to present-day, Green had hardly felt the need to shoot 3-pointers.
In fact, scoring in general has been an afterthought for Green in recent years. He did not need to shoot with Durant on his team and let’s be honest, there was no point in exhausting himself during the 2019-20 NBA season with both Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson sidelined.
It is natural then, that flipping the switch would take a little while for Draymond. He has gradually grown more aggressive on offense since last season and is on the right track to score the ball just enough to keep opponents honest this year.
The key will be for Green to continue picking his shots and reinserting himself into the Dubs’ offense, something he has done well thus far.