Draymond Green was spectacular during Golden State’s 121-109 win over Portland in Game 1 of their Western Conference Quarterfinals series. When Green’s shot is falling, his two-way brilliance is breathtaking, and it leads to Steve Kerr saying things like this.
Kerr on Draymond: "He just played a game I think no one else in the league is capable of playing … who can do everything that he did?"
— Tim Bontemps (@TimBontemps) April 16, 2017
By any objective measure, Green put together one of his best all-around performances ever. He registered 19 points on 6-for-10 shooting and 3-for-4 on attempts from three, 12 rebounds, nine assists, five blocks, a steal, and a turnover in 37 minutes. His defense was stellar, his shot was falling, and his ability to make plays oftentimes sent the crowd at Oracle into a frenzy. Green was locked in from the second he stepped onto the court and managed to do everything well. Again, it was breathtaking.
Kerr was wrong about one thing, though. There *are* other players who can have nights like Green. Admittedly there aren’t many, but in terms of a number of players who can fill up a stat sheet in a number of ways, there are two or three other dudes who can show us what Green showed us on Sunday.
One of them is LeBron James. We take this for granted this because LeBron has been so great for so long, but he is also capable of throwing down box scores that show an all-around ability to dominate a basketball game.
Take what he did on Monday in Game 2 against the Pacers as an example: 42 minutes, 25 points on 11-for-12 shooting, 10 rebounds, seven assists, four blocks, four steals, and eight turnovers. He didn’t hit as many threes as Green (he went 0-for-2 from downtown), and the turnover numbers weren’t pretty, but he otherwise filled the stat sheet in a similar manner to what Green did.
This is not meant to diminish Green’s performance – again, he was awesome on Sunday, and advanced stats show that the Warriors were better with him on the floor than the Cavaliers were with LeBron – but this is an example of everyone getting so used to how good LeBron is at basketball that his “solid nights” would be kind of crazy for everyone else.
Just take his 2016-17 season as proof of this. Here is the entire list of guys who averaged at least 26 points, eight assists, and eight rebounds per game while shooting at least 54 percent from the field, dating back to 1946:
- LeBron James, 2016-17 (26.4 points, 8.7 assists, 8.6 rebounds, 54.8 field goal percentage)
That’s it. That’s the list.
LeBron did this despite moving into 28th on the all-time list in minutes played, passing guys like Scottie Pippen, Michael Jordan, Bill Russell, and Patrick Ewing this year. He also led the league in minutes per game this year, which for someone who has played 52 more regular season minutes in his career than 39-year-old Jason Terry, is insane.
To recap, he had a unprecedented statistical season despite having more wear and tear on his body than all but 27 other players (and that’s not even including postseason minutes or the Olympics or anything like that) while leading his team to a “disappointing” 51 wins.
LeBron James is extremely good at basketball.
