Breaking Down What Draymond Green Is Really Worth in NBA Free Agency
The first thing you realize when trying to figure out what Draymond Green—the Golden State Warriors' defensive dynamo, emotional barometer and soon-to-be restricted free agent—is worth is that there are no other Draymond Greens.
Saying he's rare falls short. He's unique—a one-of-a-kind talent with skills, production and intangibles that don't exist anywhere else. And when you factor in his perfect situation in Golden State, it gets even harder to find comparisons.
But that's what the Warriors and other potential suitors will have to do this summer when Green, the No. 35 pick in the 2012 NBA draft, hits free agency. That's how the process of determining market value is supposed to work: Find comparable talents, determine what they've been paid, and land on a number that makes sense.
There are a few ways to emphasize the difficulty that will attend Green's valuation, but let's start by presenting the list of players Green's age or younger (he's 24) currently producing per-game averages of at least 11.5 points, eight rebounds and 3.5 assists:
- Draymond Green
Short list, huh?
All right, fine. How about we pull together the group of players who match or exceed Green's averages of 1.6 steals and 1.4 blocks per game:
| Anthony Davis | $7 million | 2.8 | 1.6 |
| DeMarcus Cousins | $16.5 million | 1.6 | 1.5 |
| Nerlens Noel | $4 million | 1.7 | 1.6 |
| Draymond Green | $900,000 | 1.4 | 1.6 |
This is an odd list—insofar as Green's on it. We've got a generational superstar in Anthony Davis, a hulking interior force in DeMarcus Cousins and a potentially dominant defensive center in Nerlens Noel. Green doesn't belong here, alongside three imposing big men like this.
How is this at all helpful? Is Green due the kind of money typically reserved for franchise centers? The fact that Cousins is the only guy in this group to have signed an extension makes this all the harder. Davis will get a full five-year max. There's no doubt about that. Noel is only half a season into his NBA career, and at 20, it's impossible to know what he might be worth down the line.
Guessing at Green's worth with these comparisons is impossible.
Another avenue: Let's focus on Green's floor-stretching prowess by isolating players who've hit at least 1.4 threes per game while grabbing at least eight rebounds this season.
| Kevin Love | 1.6 | 10.5 | 33% | $16,000,000 |
| Draymond Green | 1.4 | 8.0 | 33.5% | $900,000 |
That search criteria leaves us with Green and the guy many view as the prototypical stretch 4: Kevin Love. And it's worth noting that Green has connected on 33.5 percent of his triples this year, which betters Love's down season of 33 percent.
You can't make the case that Green is a better perimeter talent than Love, but you can argue that he does almost everything else better than the Cavaliers' $16 million man.
Remember, we've just been looking at basic stats to this point—none of which quantify Green's unique ability to guard all five positions for long stretches of a game. The things he enables a defense to do cannot be captured in conventional stats.
If you want to employ a switch-heavy defense, Green makes it work because he can leap out to bother point guards. If you need him to wrestle with 7-footers on the box, he can do that just as well.
These stats from ESPN.com's Tom Haberstroh come from early January, but they drive home the point that however good we think Green might be on defense, the truth is he's probably much, much better:
"According to SportVU data provided to ESPN Insider, Green has defended 38 drives by point guards this season, and those 38 drives have resulted in a measly 15 points, for an average of 0.39 points per drive. The league average on points per drive: 0.63. Also: Among the 18 players who have defended at least 75 post-ups, no one has held their opponent to a lower payoff than Green (0.68 points per post-up).
"
That is absurd. How in the world do you put a dollar value on someone who, by at least one metric, is the best post defender in the league and holds point guards way below league-average productivity on the perimeter?
It's impossible to find a salary for a comparable player because no such player exists.
Maybe if we just revert back to basic numbers like points, rebounds and assists, we can get our bearings again.
If we remove the under-24 qualifier used above, here's the list of players who match Green's averages in those three easily understood areas this season:
| Draymond Green | 18.6 | 8.2 | 3.9 | $900,000 |
| Marc Gasol | 11.5 | 8 | 3.5 | $16,000,000 |
This is getting ridiculous. An MVP candidate center who is about to become the hottest commodity on this summer's unrestricted free-agent market (and definitely a max player)...and Green.
What if Green wins Defensive Player of the Year? This is a not-at-all-ridiculous proposition, by the way; Green leads the NBA in individual defensive rating and defensive win shares. He's made the biggest cumulative impact on the NBA's best defense. If he gets the praise he's due in the form of a major award, what do his peers look like then?
The more you look at Green's comparisons—imperfect and forced as they necessarily are—the more a maximum contract looks like a foregone conclusion. He's in elite company in so many different areas that it almost feels like a max deal is the only option.
If you're a general manager with cap money to spend, there are a couple of ways you could convince yourself that Green may not be worth that much. For starters, it's difficult to know just how big of a boost his offensive game gets from the Warriors' system.
Green rarely ranks higher than Golden State's fourth option on offense, which means he enjoys a steady diet of open looks. In fact, 77.2 percent of his shots come without dribbling, and 30.3 percent of his field goals have been designated as "wide open," which means no defender was within six feet of him.
Watch the Warriors and you'll notice this. Green's three-point attempts are almost exclusively uncontested. The fact that he's shooting just 33.5 percent from deep while getting so many quality looks might be concerning for teams hoping for similar offensive production in a different environment.
If Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson aren't there to suck in defenders with their gravity, perhaps Green sees more honest coverage and can't sustain his already modest perimeter accuracy.
His defense is likely to translate wherever he goes, but even that aspect of his game gets a situational boost with the Warriors. Having Andrew Bogut waiting at the rim makes perimeter defense easier, as does the cadre of rangy wing stoppers populating the Dubs' roster.
Still, Green's defensive prowess, as we've mentioned, stands up on its own for the most part—statistically and anecdotally.
The complications keep coming, though. And the rising salary cap is one of them. We just saw the Warriors go big on a contract for Thompson (although that has turned out to be a very fair deal rather quickly) in part because they knew the inflating cap would make a four-year, $70 million pact look smaller in short order.
Not every team with cap room will line up to toss a four-year, $66 million contract (which is the most another team could offer based on the current projected cap). But one probably will. And for the Warriors, who'll be in a position to match, that's all the matters.
One big offer sheet is all it takes to set the market (See: Hayward, Gordon).
Green's name has been tossed around with the word "max" enough times and by enough esteemed voices to create an environment where seeing him ink that kind of deal won't be considered a shock. Not that public opinion should necessarily control the market, but when Jeff Van Gundy says "I really think he's going to be a max player" on a Jan. 9 broadcast, per ESPN.com's Ethan Strauss, it has the effect of normalizing what before seemed like an abnormal concept.
So what's Green worth?
It depends.
If we're talking about the Warriors, the perfect situation for him, where he can improve at his own pace in a sound system on a hefty ration of good shots, the answer might be the max.
Per Tim Kawakami of the San Jose Mercury News, Warriors owner Joe Lacob has conveyed a willingness to take his team into the luxury tax to keep Green, which, if you think about it, means he's actually worth more than the max to them because of the added penalty for exceeding the tax line.
Lacob said:
"I’m not allowed per NBA rules as you know to make certain statements about who we’re going sign or how hard we’re going to try to sign that person. What I will say is, (Green) was born to be a Warrior. And we love him. I certainly think today as we look at our team, he’s part of our core and can’t imagine it being otherwise.
"
If we're talking about a floundering team in search of an emotional leader who can't carry a club on offense, maybe the max is too much. Maybe Lacob won't have to take a massive tax hit to retain a player he unabashedly adores.
If you want to get practical about it, asking what Green is worth is really just asking how much somebody's willing to pay. You can plug in all the numbers and comparisons you want, but in the end, Green is worth whatever the market says he is.
Thanks to the growing buzz around his defensive game, his unique stats and the high profile of his team, it looks increasingly like the market is going to say he's worth as much as the collective bargaining agreement allows him to be paid.
In other words, max money.
*Stats accurate through games played Feb. 2 and sourced from Basketball-Reference.com and NBA.com unless otherwise indicated.
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