After a back injury kept Draymond Green from reaching his full potential during the Warriors’ 2021-22 NBA season, the veteran forward enters the team’s upcoming campaign looking to remind the league he’s still an elite defender when healthy.
And with Tuesday’s release of the annual survey taken by general managers around the league, Green received a little more motivation to do so.
In ranking the NBA’s best defensive players, GMs voted Green as No. 2 behind Milwaukee Bucks forward Giannis Antetokounmpo. Green received 24 percent of the votes, while Antetokounmpo garnered nearly half of the vote tally with 48 percent.
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Last season, Green missed over two months to a lower back injury that he later explained impacted his L5-S1 intervertebral disc, affecting his sciatica nerve and eventually extending to his lower extremities.
Prior to the ailment, Green was playing the brand of basketball Dub Nation has come to know and love. He looked like a Defensive Player of the Year candidate if not one who would go on to win the award until he was sidelined.
While Green eventually did return to the court and made an impact throughout the Warriors’ 2022 NBA playoff run, he wasn’t quite the same player. Still, his contributions when healthy were enough to earn him two third-place votes for Defensive Player of the Year.
Antetokounmpo finished sixth in voting for the DPOY award, though it’s clear NBA GMs respect his defensive prowess above all others heading into the 2022-23 season.
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But if there’s one thing Warriors fans know about Green, it’s that he’ll use any slight as a performance catalyst. Take Game 6 of the NBA Finals, for example, when he stepped up in a big way against the Boston Celtics after a week of criticism from fans and pundits alike.
Green also was voted the NBA’s third-best interior defender, receiving seven percent of the vote behind Antetokounmpo (10 percent) and Rudy Gobert of the Minnesota Timberwolves (83 percent).
Green was ranked No. 2 after Antetokounmpo again when it comes to the league’s most versatile defender, collecting 31 percent of the vote behind the Bucks star’s 41 percent.
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And it wasn’t just Green who was recognized; Andrew Wiggins also received votes for best defensive player and best perimeter defender, while the Warriors were ranked as the NBA’s second-best defensive team.
As Golden State prepares for the fast-approaching season, they can be expected to use the survey’s ranking both as encouragement and as motivation in their quest to repeat as NBA champions.