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It wasn't long ago that Draymond Green made headlines by declaring himself “the best defender ever” after being baited into answering that question in a press conference. The ever-so-confident emotional leader of the Golden State Warriors didn't have to look far to answer that question, but his teammate Andre Iguodala further magnified that Green's sheer confidence in his own ability is far from unfounded.
“I think you saw that in college a little bit — how many Final Fours did he go to?” Andre Iguodala told Dieter Kurtenbach of the San Jose Mercury News last week. “Things like that, when you go through the draft process — they don’t put those attributes into play, or perhaps not as much as they should. There’s always that vanity play — length or how fast you are or how well you shoot. There’s something that’s overlooked and then there are things that are underlooked and winning that’s something underlooked. There’s a winning trait that fewer and fewer guys are having as we go where we’re trending in basketball.”
Green has played with a ginormous chip on his shoulder ever since being drafted with the 35th pick in the draft, as teams passed on his rebounding, deft passing, and his intellect due to more obvious criticisms of his game. A tweener, not athletic enough, not slim enough, not fast enough — those were some of the adjectives attached to Green's resume after finishing his senior season at Michigan State — none of which have mattered through his seven-year stint in the NBA.
Make no mistake in it — Green's draft day cons might still be true to this day, but analysts, scouts and gurus understated that he was an undisputed winner in college, and he managed to carried that important trait into his professional career.
The 29-year-old has transformed from a capable, multi-faceted defender into the proverbial Roman God of defense in this postseason, staking a claim at his worth as the best defender to roam the hardwood.
