Let’s say you were trying to create the worst game Draymond Green could have. Obviously, this would be a blowout loss for the Golden State Warriors. His stat line – always vulnerable given his limitations as a scorer – would be weak across the board. Naturally, this would have to happen in a match against a rival, of which he fortunately has plenty.
But what are the chances of all these stars aligning at this point in his career? Turns out that’s not low enough.
Golden State’s 144-93 loss to the Memphis Grizzlies on Thursday checked all the boxes on the Green disaster checklist. The Warriors have already lost big during Green’s career. In March, for example, they lost by 52 points to the Boston Celtics. But Green’s individual performance, while not exactly good, at least managed to fall within the statistical ranges typical of a poor performance.
That wasn’t the case Thursday when Green failed to score a single point. He did not deliver a single assist. And he didn’t manage a single rebound. In 19 minutes, the only positive stat he managed to generate was a single steal. In those minutes, the Warriors were outscored by 42 points.
Among players who recorded no points, rebounds or assists, this minus-42 plus-minus is a new NBA save. In fact, no player in the play-by-play era had ever been minus-42 in less than 20 minutes before Green did it on Thursday.
This makes sense, even with a little thought. It’s rare for a player who posts no posts, no rebounds, or no assists to play even 20 minutes in a game. NBA game because any player good enough to play 20 minutes will usually find a way to post a stat of some sort. Green, who also committed four turnovers and four fouls in the loss, is the rare player whose stature guarantees some playing time, but whose little-used style and relatively small stature for a big man make for a zero stat -zero-zero. line possible.
And to make matters even worse, that outing came against Memphis. Although he has enemies across the league, no team has drawn as much ire from Green as the Grizzlies. Even though Dillon Brooks is no longer on the team, this is about the last team he’d want to get blown out by. And it was never close Thursday as Memphis turned a 37-15 first quarter into a 51-point victory.
If it’s any consolation to Green, he was far from the only Warrior to have a weird night. For the first time in his career, Stephen Curry failed to score a basket in an injury-free game. Dennis Schroder made his Warriors debut after a weekend trade with the Brooklyn Nets, and he shot 2 of 12 from the floor for just five points. Andrew Wiggins scored 19 points, but Golden State’s other four starters totaled just nine.
Every team has a game or two like this at some point on the schedule. Blowouts are an inevitability of NBA life. But it was a special moment for Green. Just about everything that could have gone wrong for him on Thursday actually did.
