Thoughts on Game 5 without Draymond Green

Is Draymond Green the most important Warrior?

To prove a mathematical theorem, one must demonstrate the theory is both sufficient and necessary. If you can show both sufficiency and necessity, then you have proven your theorem and you can write Q.E.D. at the bottom.  I think about this now, in the face of Green’s Game 5 suspension. Now of course, no one game will be enough to mathematically prove something, .but it at the very least makes for an interesting test case.

For the last several months. I have been making the argument that Green, and not Stephen Curry, may be the actual MVP for the Warriors. While Steph is very likely the greatest shooter we’ve ever seen, I argue that he is only able to do what he does on offense because he does not have to actually play full-time point guard for the Warriors. Since Green takes on so much of the “floor generalship” responsibilities, Curry is able to spend more time and energy doing what he does best: score with a shooting touch and range that the NBA has never before experienced.

However, because of this, it tends to be Green the point-power-forward/point-center that has more of a point-guard-like impact on the Warriors’ offense. In historic RAPM studies, I have noticed that being an excellent team offense initiator for your position is one of the most common methods for having an extremely positive offensive impact. It doesn’t surprise anyone at all that Curry tends to measure out as one of the most impactful offensive players over the last couple of seasons according to RAPM. However Green ALSO measuring  out with a huge correlation to positive offensive results for the Warriors might be a little more counter-intuitive. 

In fact, according to this study[1. From Jeremias Engelmann, the creator of ESPN’s “Real Plus/Minus stat.] Green’s impact is estimated to be only slightly smaller than Curry’s in terms of offensive RAPM. It stands to reason that Green’s huge responsibilities in terms of running the team enable him to have such a superstar-like offensive impact despite relatively modest top line stats.

However, these point guard skills aren’t the only reason that he has such a big effect on the offense. Green also is a big who is able to hit threes at an almost 40% clip[2. Providing a huge spacing effect, another historical characteristic of big offensive RAPM scores], able to attack the defense off the dribble drive from outside of the arc, and he is an effective and unselfish screens which that help open up the other long-range shooters on the team. In other words, while Curry is the unanimous MVP almost entirely because of his immense offensive abilities, there are reasons to believe metrics which suggest Green is almost as important to the Warriors’ offense as Curry

Meanwhile, on the other end of the court, there is absolutely no question that Green is the anchor. Green has finished runner-up in the NBA Defensive Player of the Year vote for two straight seasons, and his defensive RAPM scores attest that this honor was well-deserved. In addition to battling with Andre Iguodala for the title of best 1-on-1 defender on the Warriors, Green is also the best help defender on the team. He is the vocal defensive captain, loudly making sure that everyone else is in place and making the right decisions.

So in Green, you have a player that is integral to the Warriors’ offense and even more important to their defense. In a previous article, I pointed out that the list of NBA forward-centers to have averaged at least five assists per game for a season that were also credible Defensive Player of the Year candidates consists of:

• Bill Russell
• Wilt Chamberlain
• Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
• Bill Walton
• Kevin Garnett
• Joakim Noah (2014)
• Draymond Green

Outside of Noah, a list of MVP winners and centerpieces on championship teams. So there is definitely a historical precedent for a player that does what Green does to be a mega impact player on the court.

With this type of full context as a backdrop, it isn’t nearly as shocking that when one looks at the different +/- approaches that attempt to correlate a player’s presence with the teams scoring margin it turns out that Green measures better than Curry. To whit:

Based on the above, Draymond certainly seems like the most valuable, right? Thus, his suspension for Game 5 is pretty much a ticket for a Warriors loss, right?

Well, not so fast. All of these +/- stats are noisy, and are all dependent on situation and context. While it is somewhat compelling that Green consistently measures “better” than Curry in pure +/- approaches, the margins between he and Curry aren’t necessarily statistically significant. Plus, even if we assumed that the differences were significant, it would only tell us that Green had a higher correlation to positive movements of the Warriors’ scoring margin than Curry given their particular situations.

So what? Well, as Kevin Pelton points out, Green hasn’t missed many games this season, and he’s played big minutes in almost every game that he has played. Because of this, we don’t have much idea what the Warriors would look like as a team without Green. Nearly 93 percent of Green’s minutes have come alongside at least one Splash Brother, making it difficult to get a handle on his value independent of the other Dubs’ All-Stars.

So, while we have some idea what the Warriors look like with Green but without Curry[3. Still good enough to, for example, close out the Rockets 4 – 1 in Round One of the Playoffs and take a solid lead on the Trail Blazers in Round Two.] we really don’t know what to expect from the Warriors without Green, especially considering the absence will only be one game.

Perhaps Curry will be able to cover the offense initiation duties himself, allowing Klay Thompson to step up more as a scorer. Perhaps Thompson, Andre Iguodala, Andrew Bogut and Shaun Livingston will be able to up their efforts even further on defense. For one game especially, the Warriors could cover for a lot of the holes left by Green’s absence. They could still very conceivably close out the Cavs.  After all, as Pelton also points out, during the 118 minutes this season that Curry and Thompson have both played with Green out, the Warriors still managed a respectable 114.6 points per 100 possessions and a plus-6.0 net rating that is very comparable to the plus 5.8 that the Cavaliers managed across all line-ups in the regular season. Small sample size, but at least encouraging for the Warriors.

However, the opposite could also prove true.  Without Green, the Warriors very well could be an inferior team to the Cavs. In the only game that Green missed this season, the Dubs lost to the lottery bound Nuggets. Green’s absence on offense could make the Warriors’ attack much more predictable, with Curry having to expend much more energy in a role that won’t net either he or his teammates the kind of high-efficiency looks that they’re used to seeing. The “Death Lineup” doesn’t exist without Green at center. The outstanding bench, which has swung several games in this series, is now thinner because one of them[4. presumably Iguodala.] will now be with the first unit. The Cavaliers, who appeared to be on the ropes after their Game 4 loss put them in a 3 – 1 deficit, could use Green’s absence as just the catapult that they need to get back on-serve in this series.

That result is most potentially interesting to me. Green’s presence is obviously a sufficient condition for the Warriors to be championship favorites. It’s been shown all season. If the Warriors fall apart in Game 5 without Green, wouldn’t that at least suggest he not only sufficient but also necessary for Warriors’ championship aspirations?

Now again, no one game (regardless of the outcome) would be enough to prove anything completely. Win or lose, there will be no Q.E.D. written on Green’s status based on one game. But as someone driving the “Green is the most valuable Warrior” bandwagon all year[3. In the face of overwhelming sentiment that I’m wrong…] it would certainly be a very interesting datapoint for me if the Warriors should struggle without Green in a way that they haven’t when Curry was out. Even if it’s only for one night.