Does Kevin Durant or Draymond Green have higher value to the Golden State Warriors?

The Kevin Durant-Draymond Green debacle, along with Stephen Curry’s latest injury, raises some interesting questions about the relative importance of each Golden State Warriors star.

Sports are supposed to be objective. Numbers-based. Quantifiable. Yet they break from this mold far more often than we imagine they do.

Take the Golden State Warriors. Statistically speaking, the team’s hierarchy is clear. Take your pick between Kevin Durant or Stephen Curry at the top. Then comes Klay Thompson and Draymond Green, with a sizable gap between them and the two former MVPs.

Theoretically, this should dictate everything. In reality, it doesn’t mean all that much. Curry is shooting a lower percentage from the field and from the line than Durant this season. He averages fewer rebounds, fewer assists, fewer blocks, more turnovers and more fouls.

He is also unquestionably the team’s most important player. As long as Curry sets foot on the court, the Warriors are a championship contender. They have gone 254-47 over the past five years with Curry on the court, and never had a winning percentage below .804 in a single season. Without him, they are 23-22.

Durant’s absence has meant far less. The team is 112-36 with him in the lineup, and 25-9 with him out. That’s a winning percentage reduction of two points (75.7 to 73.5), compared to a 33-point drop (84.4 to 51.1) without Curry.

This does not necessarily mean that Curry is the better basketball player. Many think he is (myself included), but Golden State’s relative success with and without its two superstars undeniably has a lot to do with an offensive system that is built around Curry and a roster with far more depth at forward than at point guard.

Of course, this is in large part due to the fact that the team has been building around Curry since it drafted Klay Thompson in 2011. It selected Green the following year, and Steve Kerr — who was hired in 2014 in part due to his experience playing in and building offenses that emphasized shooting and ball movement — turned the team into an instant juggernaut.

When Durant clapped at and chided Green for not passing him the ball at the end of regulation on Nov. 12 at Staples Center, this history was at the heart of Green’s response: We have an infrastructure here. It was built without you, it has produced historic levels of success without you, it will continue to work with or without you.

The biggest threat to the Warriors dynasty in Green’s mind is not Durant leaving, but Durant co-opting the team’s identity and focus. And though it was not said explicitly, based on what was reported, Green’s reaction seemed to reflect another belief: That Durant could not speak to him the way he has spoken to Durant. That there is a hierarchy, and that Green is higher in it.

This is where objectivity breaks down when it comes to value assessment.

We could look at the team’s success with and without Green as we did with Curry and Durant. The team is 193-47 (.804 winning percentage) with Green and 20-7 (.741 winning percentage) without him since 2014-15, a differential slightly bigger than that of Durant’s.

However, Green’s impact on regular season winning is by far the least important of his exploits, particularly because he rarely plays his best position during the regular season. Far more crucial is his postseason value, and perhaps beyond that, his unquantifiable leadership.

Durant can counter with the fact that his impact also elevates in the postseason, particularly on the ultimate stage. His 2017 NBA Finals numbers were cartoon-like (he averaged 35.2 points, 8.2 rebounds, 5.4 assists and 1.6 blocks per game on 69.8 percent true shooting), and he has hit the series-defining shot on the road two years running.

He also nearly cost the Warriors the 2018 Western Conference Finals with his uninspired effort on defense and on the glass, and his unwillingness to move the ball offensively. Given that the biggest threats to Golden State going forward are teams that resemble last year’s Houston Rockets (the Boston Celtics, Toronto Raptors, Philadelphia 76ers, and yes, the Rockets) than the Cleveland Cavaliers of the last four years, perhaps Durant’s LeBron James-beating exploits are no longer as crucial as Green’s small-ball unlocking magic.

Of course, there’s also the question of age and eventual decline. Durant is 18 months Green’s senior, with a darker past in terms of injuries and surgeries. On the flip side, he depends far less on athleticism and max exertion, and far more on shooting, ball-handling and height — skills that abandon players far more gradually. Durant might still be a top-five NBA player in five years; Green may not even be a starter.

While there is no clear answer here, there is a clear way that Golden State should go about this: Do everything it can to keep Durant next summer, and do the same with Green the year after that. Should re-signing Durant lead to Green’s departure, so be it, and should their unwillingness to trade Green cost them a chance at re-signing Durant, that’s okay too.

The Curry/Durant/Green/Thompson core will not last forever, and doing anything to reduce the likelihood of success in the present should be out of the question. The best option here is to not make a choice. The Warriors must hope that Green and Durant can co-exist well enough to not change that reality — and that Curry can return soon enough to make none of it matter.

All stats courtesy of CleaningTheGlass.com and Basketball-Reference.com