Green wins Defensive Player of the Year
Draymond Green has finally captured the elusive individual defensive award he has long coveted.
After two straight seasons as a runner-up to Kawhi Leonard, Green was named the NBA Defensive Player of the Year for the 2016-17 season, announced during the inaugural NBA Awards show in New York City on Monday night.
Green accepted the award in person, strolling up to the stage in a teal tuxedo suit jacket, a bow tie, shorts and some skull-head slippers without socks, an aggressive outfit that created quite the social media buzz. Kevin Garnett, who won the award in 2008, presented the trophy to Green.
“First off, thank you, means a lot to get the award from you,” Green told Garnett.
He then thanked his teammates in a surprisingly modest speech.
“This isn’t an individual award. There are five guys out there at a time,” Green said. “I appreciate them. Even with KD and Klay not making the All-Defensive team, I appreciate everything they do.”
Green was a runaway winner, receiving 73 of the 100 first place votes. Towering Jazz center Rudy Gobert got 16, Kawhi Leonard got 11.
In winning, Green, who was selected 35th overall by the Warriors back in 2012, became only the sixth non-first round pick in NBA history to win Defensive Player of the Year, joining Marc Gasol, Ben Wallace, Dennis Rodman, Mark Eaton and Michael Cooper.
Green first built up this type of defensive reputation three seasons ago. The year prior, he was a bench player and not among the 17 guys to receive votes for the award. But a preseason injury to David Lee in 2014 catapulted him into the Warriors’ starting lineup.
Suddenly with a bigger role, Green’s unique skill set terrorized the league and turned heads. Listed at 6-foot-7, Green is an undersized power forward who blocks shots and rebounds like a man five inches taller. But it’s his versatility, lateral quickness and smarts that makes him so unique.
In a league transitioning more and more to a spread pick-and-roll offensive attack, Green was the perfect defensive antidote, a high-energy scrambling big who was bulky enough to guard every type of center, agile enough to stay with point guards, studious enough to learn every player’s every move and confident enough to embrace all challenges and loudly boast every time he succeeds.
As various teams across the league tried to reform around the NBA’s changing style, a common personnel suggestion began continually popping up: “They need to find themselves a Draymond Green.”
In 2015, Green received 45 first place votes for the Defensive Player of the Year, eight more than Kawhi Leonard. But because of the point system and more second place finishes for Leonard, the Spurs forward narrowly snagged the award. In 2016, Leonard won it again, this time more comfortably.