Golden State Warriors 2017: Ranking Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Draymond Green, Klay Thompson
The Golden State Warriors are headed to the 2017 NBA Finals with one of the greatest rosters in league history. The Western Conference’s No.1 seed is an overwhelming favorite to win the title after going undefeated through the first three rounds of the playoffs.
Having made the All-Star team, Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green are all among the 25 best players in the NBA. But how do the players rank compared to one another?
READ: Why The Golden State Warriors Are Better Than Last Year's 73-Win Team
1) Kevin Durant
Before the start of last season, there was no debate regarding the NBA’s top players—LeBron James was the best basketball player in the world, and Durant was right behind him at No.2. James won four MVPs from 2009-2014 with five top-two finishes, while Durant had the second-most votes three times before finally winning the award in 2014.
Then Durant got hurt, Curry won two straight MVPs, and James Harden, Russell Westbrook and Kawhi Leonard started playing like superstars. Ask an NBA fan who the league’s second-best player is and you could get five different answers. Ask them to rank the top six players in order, and you might get some putting Durant at the bottom.
Putting any sort of recency bias aside, Durant still has not relinquished that No.2 spot. The Warriors are better than last year’s 73-win team because they added a player that was better than anyone on that record-setting roster, and he’s arguably playing the best basketball of his career.
Scoring 25.1 points per game in the regular season, Durant shot a career-high 53.7 percent from the field. He’s making 55.6 percent of his shots in the playoffs and shooting 41.7 percent from three-point range. Durant and Curry had an almost identical scoring average in the regular season, though the forward did it on nearly two fewer shots per game.
Durant and Curry are both so good offensively that choosing one over the other on that end of the floor is truly splitting hairs. Durant gets the nod as the better player because of his defense. Even after trading Andrew Bogut to clear salary cap space to sign Durant, the Warriors didn’t lose a step defensively. Durant is an underrated rim protector, and he ranked sixth this season in defensive rating, putting him three spots ahead of back-to-back Defensive Player of the Year Kawhi Leonard.
Durant is the slight favorite to win the NBA Finals MVP ahead of Curry.
2) Stephen Curry
Durant might have the edge because of his defense, but it’s pretty easy to see why someone might pick Curry as the Warriors’ best player. When the point guard has been at his apex, no player in the NBA has been able to score like him.
Just look at last season when he won his second consecutive MVP award, becoming the first-ever unanimous winner in league history. At just 29 years old, he’s already been given the honor of being called the best shooter of anyone that’s put on an NBA uniform. Attempting 10.6 three-pointers per game over the past two years, Curry has converted 43.3 percent of those shots, and his ability to shoot the ball from just about anywhere on his team’s side of the floor makes him nearly impossible to defend.
Golden State was unable to complete their record-setting 2016 season with a championship because Curry wasn’t himself in the playoffs. Suffering an injury in the first-round, the point guard made just 40.3 percent of his shots and averaged less than four assists against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals. No matter what the reason was for Curry’s disappointing performance, he seems ready to make up for it in a big way this June.
Curry has been on fire this postseason, leading the team with 28.6 points per game on 50.2 percent shooting. He led the Warriors to two victories when Durant was out with an injury, including a 34-point performance in Game 3 of the first round against the Portland Trail Blazers. Golden State rattled off 13 straight wins before Durant returned from his knee injury at the end of the regular season, in large part because of Curry’s brilliance.
Even if Durant never came back from his injury, Curry would still give the Warriors a chance to win their second championship in three years.
3) Draymond Green
Just as there is a dispute regarding the Warriors’ best player, a similar debate could be had over the team’s No.3 and No.4 players. Green and Thompson are both very different players, and they sometimes get overshadowed because they play alongside two superstars.
As good as Thompson is, Green is probably more important to Golden State’s success. He does a little bit of everything, and he does much of it very well. While Curry is the team’s leading scorer, Green leads the team in every other category this postseason. Green was tied for ninth in the regular season in assists per game, and he joined LeBron James as the only other frontcourt player that ranked in the top 23 in that category.
Finishing second in the voting for Defensive Player of the Year in both 2015 and 2016, Green might have done enough to finally win the award in 2017. He ranked second in the league to only Andre Drummond in defensive rating, though his true value on defense can’t be measured. His ability to guard all five positions is key to Golden State’s success, allowing them to play a smaller lineup that can score like no other in the NBA.
Green’s playoff performance in 2016 was costly at times. He only shot 35 percent from the field as Golden State was nearly upset by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals (see: Durant’s defense), and Green was also suspended in Game 5 of the NBA Finals, which kickstarted Cleveland’s comeback.
Postseason struggles haven’t been an issue for Green this year, averaging 13.9 points, 8.7 rebounds, 7.2 assists, 2.1 blocks and 1.9 steals per game. He’s shot 50 percent in all three series.
4) Klay Thompson
But it’s not just Thompson’s scoring that makes him so valuable. He’s often regarded as one of the NBA’s best two-way players, defending his position better than most. While Curry is sometimes thought of as a defensive liability in the backcourt, Thompson can more than hold his own.
Thompson might not be the scorer that Curry and Durant are, but his ability to put up points quickly is matched by no one else in the NBA. He scored 60 points during a game in December, playing 29 minutes and holding the ball for just 90 total seconds. Two years ago, he set a record by scoring 37 points in one quarter.
The Warriors are hoping something close to that version of Thompson shows up in the 2017 NBA Finals, because he’s been nowhere to be found thus far in the postseason. Golden State’s dominance has overshadowed the struggles of Thompson, who’s shooting just 38.3 percent from the field and has scored fewer than 20 points in 10 of 12 games.
Thompson was awful at times in last year’s finals, scoring 14 points or less in Games 1, 3 and 7 while shooting a combined 33.3 percent from the field. If he has a big series against the Cavs, Golden State will be extremely difficult to beat.
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