Gordon Hayward Vs. Draymond Green

NBA audiences tend to forget about a players abilities after being out for the entirety of an NBA season like Gordon Hayward was after suffering one of the more gruesome leg injuries in all of sports history.

His previous year in Utah was a career year for Hayward which he led the team to the Western Conference Semi-Finals where the Golden State Warriors ended up sweeping Utah. Granted Utah was severely under-stacked compared to GSW but, to Hayward's defense he was playing along side players such as Trey Lyles, Alec Burks, Rodney Hood, and Joe Johnson. Hayward's only reputable teammate was Rudy Gobert.

All this information is great and all but, where am I going with this? Recently, on Twitter I put out the question and a poll on which player you would choose to have the better match-up against one another in head to head play. To my surprise, most individuals angrily backed Draymond Green as the better player to have when playing Gordon Hayward. Not to my surprise, these were mostly anonymous accounts from the San Francisco Bay Area. So, I went ahead and dug into the head to head statistics against one another, and this is what I found.

Granted both players have two different styles of play. Green being the defensive guru and Hayward being the offensive threat. But, stats don't lie. (For the most part) As you can see the stats are somewhat similar. Hayward being the clear leader on the offensive side of the game. Grabbing more attempts, ability to get to the line, 3 point percentage. Every other stat is almost dead even with one another.

Now, the biggest argument I encountered was that Draymond Green was the key to facilitating the offense. But in head to head matchups Gordon Hayward has the slight edge. The slightest of edge without having players like Kevin Durant, Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, and other offensive threats to be able to feed the ball to.

Golden State Warriors swept the Utah Jazz in the 2017 Western Conference Semi-Finals. During that series Gordon Hayward still seemed to shine even with Draymond Green covering him. Gordon Hayward was supposedly locked down by Green but somehow managed to average 24.8 points per game that series. Hardly was locked down, let alone even guarded by the defensive guru Green.

Now is Draymond Green not a good player? Of course he is a good player, many teams hate him unless he was on your team. But, at the end of the day Gordon Hayward is the better player in head to head matchup. Draymond Green matches up well but not up to the offensive standard that Hayward can throw at him.

Let's face it, Gordon Hayward is a franchise player, and Draymond Green is a role player on a hall of fame squad.