Draymond Green said he believes Kyrie Irving is a better scorer than Kevin Durant, who played three seasons and won two NBA championships with Green as part of the Golden State Warriors.
On the “Draymond Green Show,” Green explained his stance after Irving's incredible game-winning buzzer-beater to beat the defending champion Denver Nuggets on Sunday.
“Kyrie Irving is the scorer that everyone in the world thinks of Kevin Durant,” Green said. “What I meant by that was, there are some things, at times, that you can do to Kevin to make it a little tougher on him. Why? Because he's seven feet and he handles the ball a lot, and if you know there's times where, because he's seven feet, if you time it right, you can pressure up and press up into Kevin and make things a little bit tougher.
“Kyrie Irving, you can't do anything to make it hard on him. You can't make the game tough for Kyrie. He's one of the best three-point shooters, he's one of the best mid-rangers arguably, if not the best. He's arguably the best finisher in the NBA. He has floaters with either hand as you can see by that. He can finish with either hand at the rim. Kyrie can also switch and shoot a mid-range jump shot with his left hand. If you get him in a bad way, he can actually just shoot it. There’s actually nothing you can do to stop Kyrie from scoring.”
Kyrie Irving's incredible stretch with Mavericks
Green's opinion could come as a shock to some, as Durant is widely considered one of the greatest scorers in NBA history. Durant, the 2014 NBA MVP and a two-time Finals MVP, has won the scoring title four times and is averaging 28 points per game on 52.5% FG and 41.9% 3PT this season despite being 35 years old and having suffered several devastating injuries in his career.
Irving, a former teammate of Durant's with the Brooklyn Nets, first established himself as a high-quality scorer with the Cleveland Cavaliers and has since played for the Boston Celtics, Nets, and now the Dallas Mavericks. With Dallas, Irving has become a potent second option to Luka Doncic; Irving is averaging 25 points on 49.0% from the field and 41.5% from three.
Irving has struggled to stay healthy throughout his career, though, which has certainly limited his potential impact. With the Nets, Irving's untimely ankle injury in the second round against the Milwaukee Bucks in 2021 likely prevented the Nets, led by Durant, from winning a championship that season. Irving also suffered injuries that kept him out of postseason action in 2015 and 2018 with the Cavaliers and Celtics, respectively.
In his first full season with the Mavericks this year, Irving has similarly battled injuries — he missed 18 of a possible 28 games between Dec. 11 and Feb. 3 — but he has played in each of the Mavericks' last 19 games, averaging 25.7 points, 5.1 rebounds, and 5.2 steals while shooting 51.6% FG, 42.1% 3PT, and 93.8% FT. Dallas has also won five of its last six games, with the most recent being Sunday, when Irving hit a floater-sky hook hybrid over two-time MVP Nikola Jokic at the buzzer to beat the Nuggets.
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