Draymond Green is one of the most polarizing figures in the NBA, if not all of professional sports. Everyone you know probably has an opinion on Draymond and if they’re not Michigan State or Warriors fans, they’re likely not fond of the Spartan legend.
Although people may hate Draymond, they can’t help but respect that he’s made a career out of being really good at everything other than shooting.
But that wasn’t always the case.
At Michigan State, Green was attempting nearly 13 field goals per game by his senior year and he was making almost 45 percent of his shots. He was also shooting nearly 40 percent from three on 3.6 attempts per game and he averaged 16.2 points as Michigan State’s go-to scorer.
Oh, and he was also pretty good at defense, rebounding, and passing. He was the same Swiss army knife in college as he’s been in the NBA, but the only difference is that he was much more of a scoring threat before he got to the Warriors.
And Draymond blames Steve Kerr for that a little bit.
On his recent podcast episode, Green thanked Kerr for making him the player he is today but he also believes that his head coach may have hindered him. He made the claim that he came in as an offensive player but Kerr kind of limited him there. Draymond regressed offensively, and it was apparently by design and there was nothing he could do about it since the Warriors were winning.
Although he didn’t need to say it as bluntly as he did, he’s right.
Draymond Green was an offensive threat at MSU
I remember watching Draymond Green and thinking about how good he was going to be in the NBA only to watch him fall to the second round and barely play in his first two seasons.
In year three, I felt vindicated as Green was rapidly morphing into a star, but he wasn’t nearly the offensive weapons he was at Michigan State. He did have a four-year stretch from 2014-18 where he looked like his old self, but he was still being limited offensively, averaging over 10 shots per game just once in that timeframe.
Green hasn’t averaged more than 10 points per game since 2017-18 and that’s shocking considering how good he was on that end of the floor at Michigan State.
Under Tom Izzo, Green grew into a great all-around player and he shot about 47 percent from the floor over his Spartan career. He also shot 36 percent from three and scored over 1,500 career points in four years with Izzo.
Draymond might have a point here.
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