Draymond Green came into the 2021-22 NBA season as motivated as ever. He also had his eyes on a second Defensive Player of the Year award, something he believes should have already been sitting on his trophy case.
Even after missing the Warriors' last 30 games, including playing seven seconds on Jan. 9 in Klay Thompson's return, the extremely-confident Green believes he still can prove he deserves the award in the final four weeks of the regular season.
"Yeah, I've seen guys win with not many more games than I'm gonna play," Green said Monday to the media.
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The Warriors' defensive anchor will be back with the Warriors for the first time in over two months on Monday night against the Washington Wizards. He has been sidelined with what first was diagnosed as a calf injury and later was discovered as a disc/back issue. Steve Kerr will have him on a minutes restriction around 20 to 23 minutes to start with, too.
To no surprise, that isn't stopping Draymond in what he believes should be his.
"I don't know what league everybody else has been watching, but I have not seen anyone solidify themselves as Defensive Player of the Year," Green said. "Unless you're just going by, 'Oh, this guy played this amount of games and their team had this record.' Great. Yeah, you may come up with a guy. When I look around the league, Mikal Bridges has been really good defensively and Jaren Jackson has picked it up defensively.
"But yeah, I don't think anyone has solidified themselves. And I think we can all agree, through 34 games, it was already solidified."
Golden State Warriors
It's not hard to notice that Draymond didn't include a certain center who plays for the Utah Jazz.
Bridges, a small forward for the top-seeded Phoenix Suns, hasn't missed a single game this season. Jackson, a center/power forward for the Memphis Grizzlies -- who are in a battle for the No. 2 seed with the Warriors -- has only missed one game and leads the NBA in total blocks and is tied for the lead with 2.2 blocks per game.
Rudy Gobert, that certain center from Utah, played only 56 games in the 2017-18 season when he won his first of three Defensive Player of the Year awards. That's the fewest amount of games for any player who has won the award.
If Green were to not miss a single game the rest of the regular season, he still would only total 48 games played. That's just 58.5 percent of a full season and eight fewer games than Gobert played when he first won the award. Let's also not forget how great Green was defensively before his injury.
The Warriors led the NBA in both defensive rating and opposing points per game prior to him going down. They still lead the league in defensive rating, but now rank fifth in opposing points per game. The six games where they allowed the most points all season came when Green was shelved. No surprise there.
Draymond's 102 defensive rating, per Basketball-Reference, would lead the NBA if he was eligible. The same goes with his 4.7 defensive box plus-minus, which is a new career-best for him. Yeah, he's pretty good on that side of the ball.
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The odds are against Draymond adding a second DPOY this season. In the past, he only thrives when doubted. Even if he comes up short in the voting, his fire and confidence will be an added boost to the Warriors down the stretch and into the playoffs.
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