On Josh Smith, Who Could Have Been Draymond Green

Outside of a top-three draft pick, Draymond Green embodies just about the most valuable asset in today's NBA. He's become the perfect Scottie Pippen to Stephen Curry's Michael Jordan thanks to his revolutionary versatility: he can play all five positions, on both ends of the court, and play them well.

"The player that is most often brought up in conversations I have with GMs and scouts and assistant GMs and other players is Draymond Green," ESPN's Zach Lowe said on his podcast this summer. "Everybody is talking about Draymond Green. I'm sorry I keep mentioning him in columns but, literally, he comes up more than LeBron."

Having a player that can anchor an entire defense, spread the floor, and make plays for himself and others will spark conversation. But while everyone is on the hunt for the next Draymond Green, it's easy to forget a player who could have made the same impact—and did many of the same things—just a few years ago. That player is Josh Smith.

Yes, the same Josh Smith the Los Angeles Clippers recently traded for breadcrumbs, and the same Josh Smith who was waived by a floundering Detroit team a season into a four-year, $54 million contract. There was a time when Smith was not a symbol for tragically untapped potential but an All-Star-caliber player with a diverse set of skills that has only become more widely valued today. And although the comparison may look lazy from afar, and just plain weird in the context of the present, Smith and Green's primes are parallel right down to the nuances.

To start more generally, Smith's 2010-11 season statistics compared with Green's this year offer plenty of similarities:

Both men cause havoc defensively, rebound, get to the line, and score in two-point range nearly identically. Broad statistical correlations prove little, though, so we'll have to dig a little deeper.

Green makes his biggest impression on the defensive end, where he can quite literally guard all five positions. It's a unique and remarkably valuable skill that turns switches from a hassle to a benefit for the Warriors. During his best years in Atlanta, Smith guarded the best opposing player every night, whether they were a shooting guard, small forward, or power forward. Like Green in 2015, Smith finished second in Defensive Player of the Year voting in 2010, when the Hawks held their opponents to 3.9 fewer points per 100 possessions with him in the game. In 2011, that number improved to 7.1.

Unlike other lockdown defenders, Green and Smith do an equally great job at converting stops into offense. Like Green, Peak Smith handles the ball better than most big men, and possesses the foot speed to run the floor and score in transition or set up others. Off a rebound or live-ball turnover, these two are gone:

Speaking of setting up teammates, Green's quite good at it, which has helped the Warriors eviscerate teams on offense. Opponents can no longer afford to trap Curry on high screens, with Green waiting to receive a pass and easily convert a four-on-three opportunity. With Curry off-ball, Green functions as an extra point guard on the court, hitting cutters and weak-side shooters with passes from above the arc. Smith has never put up the assist numbers that Green has this year, but that does not mean he isn't an ace passer when he wants to be:

Smith did not have the weapons and the system Green does, but he showed more than just glimpses of a comparable passing game. In his final season as a Hawk, Smith and center Al Horford ran a deadly 4-5 pick-and-roll that made defenses shudder. Smith was even filling a Green-like playmaking role in last year's playoffs with Houston.

Green wouldn't be the threat he is today if he couldn't shoot the three, of course, and many would be quick to point out that Smith has struggled in that area throughout his career. But Green only shot 33.7 percent from deep last season, which rarely had ill effects. Smith was at times too liberal with his long-range shooting, but he hit over 30 percent of his threes in four different seasons. That's not overly impressive, but given the spacing Green's had over the past two years, it's fair to assume that Smith might have fared similarly well if the two had traded places.

Of course, he didn't have that, which is a big reason why Smith isn't in the same conversation as Green. For all their similarities as individual players, their environments have been worlds apart. Smith's prime did not overlap with the rise of the spread pick-and-roll attack and the three-point shot. He never got to play with a transcendent talent like Curry, whose presence might have allowed him to pick apart defenses. Green was an underdog from the moment he was drafted, while Smith started from the jump and was instantly a franchise cornerstone almost by default. They are different people with different mindsets, which in Smith's case—even before his full-bore meltdown in Detroit—led to occasional lollygagging on defense, or doing silly things like this:

These are small differences, all told, although they add up to two very different careers. For every Draymond Green in the league, there are dozens if not hundreds of could-have-beens who fell short of maximizing their potential. When a tantalizing talent like Smith's withers as it has—when a player goes from borderline star to "just traded for the rights to Maarty Leunen" punch line—"What if?" is a perfectly natural question. While Smith has his own answers, this divergence can also help us appreciate how rare a player like Green is. In another world, it may not have turned out for him; in Smith, we see one of many ways it could have gone wrong. But here, today, Draymond Green is one of a kind.