Warriors' Green Ranks 1st In Analytics Site's 'DRAYMOND' Defensive Rating
(CBS SF) -- Sports analytics website FiveThirtyEight has constructed a new way to measure player defense in the game of basketball, and Draymond Green ranks atop all other players in the new metric, fittingly titled "DRAYMOND."
The DRAYMOND metric is constructed based on opposing offensive players' shooting data, according to Nate Silver, the author of the piece and the site's creator. The acronym is broken down as follows:
- D - Defensive
- R - Rating
- A - Accounting for
- Y - Yielding
- M - Minimal
- O - Openness by
- N - Nearest
- D - Defender
"The main goal of shooting defense, especially in today's spacing-centric, ball-movement-forward offensive era, is really to minimize the chance of an open shot," said Silver.
According to the metric, Green's defense adds +3.2 points per 100 possessions for the Warriors, based only on his scoring defense (not accounting for other defensive contributions such as steals and blocks.
We came up with a new metric based on opponents' shooting data. https://t.co/K4pTWkRfWc
— FiveThirtyEight (@FiveThirtyEight) July 10, 2019
Green, the undersized but versatile big, has been featured in the Warriors' infamous "Death Lineup," and his ability to guard each of the five positions on the basketball court has been hailed by many.
His tenacious defense has already been recognized by all other metrics; he was 2017's NBA Defensive Player of the Year and he has been named to NBA All-Defensive Teams five times--three times to the First Team and twice to the Second Team.