Why Charles Barkley-Draymond Green Beef Shows How Underrated Peak Dray Was

One of the popular opinions from the Charles Barkley-Draymond Green beef is that Barkley was better in his Houston career than Green was in his best season.

This is a baseless claim.

I'll explain why it's not true before going into the bigger-picture discussion of how underrated Green was in his prime.

Peak Draymond>Houston Barkley

Barkley played four seasons with the Rockets, and though he was clearly steps below his prime, he was still a very good player.

He averaged 16.5 points, 12.2 rebounds and 3.9 assists. His effective field-goal percentage was just .502, which was just above average for that time frame.

Meanwhile, Green's peak was the 2015-16 season. He averaged 14.0 points, 9.5 rebounds and 7.4 assists. His effective field-goal percentage was .551. Even adjusted for the improvement in scoring efficiency from 1996-2000 to 2015-16, Green was more efficient in his peak season than Barkley was in any season in Houston.

This isn't to say Peak Draymond was a better offensive player than Houston Barkley. Only about 40 percent of Barkley's made field goals were assisted, whereas 70 percent of Green's field goals were assisted.

Even though Barkley played with Hakeem Olajuwon for all four seasons and Clyde Drexler for two of them, he scored most of his points in isolation.

In contrast, Green rarely scored in isolation, instead using the gravity of Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson to get great scoring opportunities.

This is why it's fair to say Houston Barkley was a better offensive player than Peak Draymond, but it's closer than people think. Keep in mind that Green shot 38.8 percent from three and had the athleticism to grab a rebound, go coast to coast and dunk it.

Barkely was known for doing the latter as well, but he shot just 25.3 percent from three in Houston.

Where it's not close is on the defensive end.

Barkley played in an era when most teams had two post-up bigs on the court at any time. The fact that he was an excellent rebounder helped his teams defend. But the fact that he was undersized made him a target to attack down low.

Green played in a more challenging era for defenses, and he was arguably the league's most impactful defender in 2015-16. He used his great wingspan to be a rim protector—despite also being undersized—but where he excelled the most was as a free safety, being one step ahead of what the offense was trying to do.

It continues to be difficult to put defensive impact into stats, but we'll use what we have to try to accurately portray how much better Green was on that end.

In Barkley's best season in Houston, his Defensive Box Plus/Minus was 1.2 and his Defensive Wins Shares was 3.7. In Green's 2015-16 season, his DBPM was 2.9 and his DWS was 5.1.

The Warriors were 11.9 points per 100 possessions better on defense with Green on the floor, per Cleaning the Glass. They were also 13.7 points better on offense with Green, which means his net rating was an outrageous 25.6.

Barkley's net rating 7.2 and 7.7 in his first two seasons in Houston, per Basketball Reference. That's pretty good, but Green's was one of the best in history.

Why Peak Dray Is Underrated

The most obvious reason is that Green has a career three-point percentage of 32.1, so people forget that for one magical 2015-16 season, he shot 38.8 percent from downtown and even made six threes in Game 7 of the Finals.

But there are other issues that explain why Peak Dray—and Dray for his whole career—is underrated.

Green's on-court antics—including some violent outbursts—have made him one the most disliked players in the league. It's natural for people to argue with less honesty about someone they don't like.

There's also the argument that Green would have been ineffective anywhere else, as Austin Rivers alluded to this week by calling Green lucky to have landed with Curry and Thompson.

There's some truth to Green needing the Warriors offense to mask his offensive limitations, but I have no doubt that Prime Draymond would've been a very good player on other teams.

Even though his defense has gotten the accolades it deserves, it's underrated by the masses as well.

Most all-time great defenders excel at one-on-one defense. Green has always been capable of defending top options at a high level, as showed in the play-in game against Kawhi Leonard. But as he and the Warriors realized during the height of their dynasty, Green wrecked offenses in help-side defense, and he could get away with that by guarding the opposing team's 4 if that player wasn't a great shooter.

My point is Green would've been a DPOY-level defender anywhere, and many fans don't appreciate how brilliant he is on that less glamorous end.

He should get more credit for his contributions to four championship teams. Instead, he's often seen as someone who rode the coattails of Curry, Thompson and others.

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