The statistical case for Draymond Green as Defensive Player of the Year

Leonardo DiCaprio won the Oscar for best actor in 2016 for “The Revenant.” 

The movie didn’t really work, but Leo was great in it. The Academy essentially gave him a lifetime achievement award. A make-up for him having never won — not for “Titanic,” “Aviator,” “Blood Diamond,” or “The Wolf of Wall Street.” 

But the best actor field that year was also weak. There was Bryan Cranston in “Trumbo,” Michael Fassbender in the Steve Jobs biopic, Eddie Redmayne in a movie hardly anyone saw, and Matt Damon in “The Martian.” 

DiCaprio deserved it. But he really deserved it over that field. 

Draymond Green is this year’s Leo. He deserves his second Defensive Player of the Year Award. Especially over this year’s eligible field. 

Victor Wembanyama’s season-ending injury turned the race upside down. He was running away with the honor, but won’t play the 65 games required for eligibility. Anthony Davis, Kris Dunn, Chet Holmgren, Alex Caruso, and Isaiah Hartenstein are also ineligible. 

That leaves Green, the defining defender of the past decade, competing against Evan Mobley, Luguentz Dort, Dyson Daniels, Ivica Zubac, Jaren Jackson Jr., and Amen Thompson. 

Green has publicly lobbied for the award in the second half, saying he “1,000%” has a case.

“I look around the league and don’t see many players impacting the game on the defensive end the way I do,” Green said. “I don’t see many players completely throwing off an entire team’s offense the way I do.”

But Green has done more than just speak his candidacy into existence. 

At 6-foot-6, Green has played center since the All-Star break. He has shut down Zion Williamson and Giannis Antetokoumpo, set the tone with his energy, plugged up holes, and covered up for his teammates’ mistakes. Nobody defends one-through-five like Green. Nobody sees the game quite like him, either.

Whether it’s a feature or a bug, the Warriors’ defense relies on Green to put out fires. Golden State finished with the seventh-rated defense in the league and ranked first after the All-Star break.  

Evaluating defense is difficult. Canvassing smart people around the league about the DPOY race over the last week of the season, the usual suspects came up. Dort, Green, Thompson, Daniels, Mobley. 

Some impressions on each: 

Green is always quick to point out that statistics rarely tell the story on defense. And he’s right: steals and blocks are crude ways of looking at that end of the floor. Green’s brilliance is in the nuances, in blowing up opponents’ sets before they can get into them, in breaking up 2-on-1 situations, in playing mind games, jumping passing lanes as a free safety, and throwing randomly targeted traps at guards.  

Ironically, Green’s DPOY resume is boosted by statistics. The advanced metrics love him. 

Green ranked first in the league in defensive LEBRON, an all-encompassing stat that measures box score stats, on-off numbers, minutes, and overall impact while adjusting for luck. He rates fourth in the league and ahead of the other candidates in defensive box plus-minus, a similar metric. 

Despite being undersized, Green ranks fifth in the league in paint defense and has the edge over Mobley — likely his biggest competition in the award — in most individual metrics. 

Need to see it for yourself? He played 68 games this year and didn’t miss a single contest after January, amassing four minutes worth of highlights. 

“Oh, I think Draymond is the Defensive Player of the Year,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “I can’t imagine him not winning at this point. What I witness every single night, the incredible versatility of his defensive game and how powerful his brain is — he’s an amazing player and he’s had a great, great year.” 

Kerr’s admittedly a little biased, but case closed.

I don’t have a ballot this year. If I did, here’s where I would’ve landed on all the NBA’s regular-season awards.

Shai Gilgeous-Alexander is probably going to win this award. But when we look back at this season 10, 20, 30 years from now, Jokic will be the story. 

Jokic became the third player ever to average a triple-double, finishing in the top-three in the league in points, rebounds, and assists per game. He had a 61-point triple-double. A 30-20-20 game. Some of the most insane passes ever completed on a basketball court. 

By now, you’ve heard the stat about how Jokic is the only MVP to ever go 10 years without playing with a single All-Star, All-NBA, or All-Defense player. You don’t even need to dig that deep into it. The Nuggets are such a mess, they fired their coach and general manager in the last week of the season. And Jokic still carried them to 50 wins and the fourth seed. 

The best player in the league had his best season ever. As great as Gilgeous-Alexander was — the best player on the best team having one of the greatest guard seasons ever — a vote for Jokic is a vote for being on the right side of history. 

First team: Amen Thompson, Lu Dort, Evan Mobley, Draymond Green, Ivica Zubac

Second team: Cason Wallace, Dyson Daniels, Jalen Williams, Jayson Tatum, Jaren Jackson Jr.

Just missed the cut: Rudy Gobert, Toumani Camara, OG Anunoby, Bam Adebayo

First team: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Donovan Mitchell, Jayson Tatum, Giannis Antetokounmpo, Nikola Jokic

Second team: Steph Curry, Tyrese Haliburton, Anthony Edwards, Evan Mobley, Karl-Anthony Towns

Third team: Cade Cunningham, Jalen Brunson, LeBron James, Jaren Jackson Jr., Alperen Sengun

Toughest cuts: Jalen Williams, Domantas Sabonis, James Harden, Ivica Zubac, Jarrett Allen