Draymond Green is to be commended greatly. For the last eight seasons, he contributed to all four of the Golden State Warriors’ championships. It’s come to the point where, similar to Paul Pierce, his outspoken nature has caused him to be underappreciated because others love to criticize him. Love him or hate him, he has nonetheless contributed to making players’ opinions heard in the public eye while waving the banner for “new media.”
However, his latest rant against the changes made to the All-NBA teams deserves some serious criticism. Among the many adjustments made to the NBA-NBPA Collective Bargaining Agreement was a 65-game minimum being imposed in order for players to qualify to make the three prestigious 5-man lists, which the Warriors star ripped to shreds on his Draymond Green Show podcast:
“65 minimum games for awards. I can appreciate this and everyone will appreciate this until you got bums on the All-NBA team and winning awards because someone didn’t qualify because they missed 10 games at some point in the season with an ankle injury,” said Green.
"I can appreciate this and everyone will appreciate this until you got bums on the All-NBA team winning awards."
Draymond Green on the new 65-game minimum for league awards 🗣
(via @TheVolumeSports)
pic.twitter.com/iouTxpRnHj— ClutchPoints (@ClutchPoints) April 5, 2023
His rant comes off similar to the ones spouted by the very talking heads he often despises. It’s highly reactionary and immediately dismissive of an imperfect solution that does have legitimate merits in potentially solving one of the NBA’s biggest issues in load management.
Let’s break down the three (3) biggest arguments against Draymond Green that prove his rant over the All-NBA team’s 65-game minimum is completely overblown.
1. Who are these “bums” Draymond is talking about?
It’s one thing for an anonymous fan on Twitter to call NBA All-Stars “bums”. It’s another when Draymond Green does it to further his argument at the expense of his own peers.
“What NBA are we representing? When you look back in NBA history and you got a bum on the All-NBA Second Team or All-NBA First Team because some guys missed some games, it won’t be so appreciated then,” Draymond Green said.
There are so many things to feel uncomfortable about this rant alleging that “bums” will invade the All-NBA teams.
First off, calling anyone who’s ever made an All-NBA 1st or 2nd team a “bum”, regardless of the era, sounds mad disrespectful of someone who likely has amassed or will amass several career All-Star nods, probably more than Draymond’s four.
It’s likely just an out of pocket take not targeting any specific player, past or present, as a “bum”. But it’s hard to separate his comment from the actual players that would qualify as bums from his assessment.
Using ESPN’s final MVP straw poll as a rough guide for who the media considers prime candidates for the All-NBA teams, only one player from the top 10, Giannis Antetokounmpo with 63/80 games, is expected to be short of the 65-game threshold. That’s only because his team has already clinched the top seed and they’re sitting him to close the season. There’s little doubt he’d hit 65 if that target existed already this season.
Devin Booker (53/80), Stephen Curry (54/80), and Jaren Jackson Jr. (62/80) represent the potential 3rd-Team members who would miss the cut. The list of so-called “bums” with 65+ games who would replace those three is very much stacked: Julius Randle, Lauri Markkanen, Trae Young, DeMar DeRozan, Pascal Siakam, Bam Adebayo, Anthony Edwards, or Zach LaVine.
Which one of them are bums?
2. The 65-game mark isn’t even a crazy high bar
Draymond Green asserts that the 65-game threshold will have serious consequences towards NBA history, which we “won’t appreciate”. While the number is indeed arbitrary, representing about 80 percent of games played in a season, it’s hardly the insurmountable figure he makes it out to be.
Not counting the 2019-20 and 2020-21 seasons, the former being the bubble season with some teams playing more games than others and the latter coming off a shortened offseason where rest was much more important, here’s the breakdown over the past decade of All-NBA players who had less than 65 games:
4 – 2021-22: Curry (64), Morant (60), LeBron (56), Durant (55)
3 – 2018-19: Embiid (64), Kawhi (60), LeBron (55)
3 – 2017-18: Embiid (63), Butler (59), Curry (51)
1 – 2016-17: Durant (62)
0 – 2015-16
1 – 2014-15: Boogie (59)
0 – 2013-14
0 -2012-13
One major consideration is that a few of them were ever so close to 65. It’s hard to imagine that the players like Steph Curry in 21-22 or Joel Embiid from 2017-19, just a game or two away from the All-NBA threshold, wouldn’t manage to plan ahead and get there.
Green argues that a 10-game absence due to a random ankle injury could wipe a superstar’s chances at All-NBA, but there are literally 17 games worth of injury buffer to work with.
Hitting 65 games wasn’t even a question from 2012 to 2017, with just 2 out of 45 players being below the figure. It’s only become an issue with the emergence of load management, which is the entire point of this adjustment – to have star players play more so that the paying fans get to see them when healthy enough to play.
3. Is he really advocating against NBA players getting paid?
Draymond Green recently felt like the NBA was stifling players’ earning capacity given that it penalized teams over the luxury tax like the Warriors and Clippers with one of the latest CBA changes. “Players lose again…. smh!” he said.
Players lose again…. Smh! Middle and Lower spectrum teams don’t spend because they don’t want to. They want to lose. So increase their spending capabilities, just to increase them. They continue to cut out the middle. And this is what we rushed into a deal for? Smdh! Never fails https://t.co/rFuSpxCJ8q
— Draymond Green (@Money23Green) April 1, 2023
Yet he argued that the 65-game requirement for All-NBA is bad because owners will have to pay players max or supermax deals that he claims are underserving “bums”.
“You know who else will be complaining? I think owners are going to end up complaining when they find a bum that they have to give an extension to that made the All-NBA team. And now they come in there asking for the max or supermax … then we’ll get the complaining,” said Draymond.
So which one is it? Shouldn’t it be considered a win for the players regardless and not something to use as ammo for the sake of an argument? Wouldn’t a new player making an All-NBA team and getting the right to a bigger payday be worth celebrating from the players’ perspective?
And the question remains as to whether these so-called bums “making $200 million that produces at $80 million level” even exist at all. Even a guy like Bradley Beal, who the Wizards have gotten criticized for committing a supermax to, is a multiple-time All-Star and loyal face of the franchise.
On top of that, there are players that aren’t making All-NBA that manage to nab deals that lucrative as well. Zach LaVine has never made an All-NBA team and got paid over $200 million. Anthony Edwards has yet to make one and is considered a long shot to make one before he signs his own extension this offseason for about $200 million, too.
It just points to how high the level of play is in the NBA is nowadays. Anyone making the All-NBA team at least has a legitimate case to earn that figure, and it’s absurd for a peer like Draymond Green to claim otherwise, regardless of whether it’s from the owner’s perspective or not.
Source: https:/clutchpoints.com
