Draymond Green Is the Villain the Golden State Warriors Need

This article is part of VICE Sports' 2016 NBA Playoffs coverage.

Draymond Green is loud and physical and cocky and mean and fast and strong and skilled; by this point in his ongoing breakthrough into a unique sort of superstardom, you almost certainly know this. Some of those adjectives are physical abilities and some are personality traits, but they're all connected. What makes Green tick is symbiotic with what makes him great; what makes him difficult is what makes him so difficult to stop. He's one of the NBA's most polarizing players for the same reason that he's one of its most versatile, and most valuable.

When Green admitted last week that he could name all 34 players selected before him in the 2012 Draft, the surprising part was how unsurprising that saltiness was. Green was supposedly too short to play power forward or center, too slow to play on the wing. He wasn't a good enough shooter to stretch the floor, explosive enough to guard players off the dribble, or strong enough to guard them in the post. He fell in the draft because he was seen as a tweener, the archaic label applied to players who don't quite fit one position. It used to be an insult.

To be fair, none of these concerns were unfair criticisms of Green coming out of Michigan State, and players have failed to last in the NBA because of any one of those shortcomings. The defensive front-office reasoning was Green needed to become significantly better at one of those things, and that specializing in it would represent his ceiling as a basketball player. But Green was never remotely bad in any of those areas; he was average or decent at everything, and improvement was possible in every category. He wasn't going to get any taller, but he could get a little bit stronger and a little bit faster. His jump shot only needed practice. Green, more than anyone else, understood this. He needed some good luck, and some time, and a spot on a team that would not repeatedly try to jam him into a traditional role.

There isn't a style of basketball Green isn't suited to play. He can dribble, shoot, pass, and defend any position. He can guard a taller player in the post and block his shot one-on-one. That impeccable timing comes out of necessity. Someone with length and elite athleticism like Hassan Whiteside never had to learn how to time his jumps with such precision; his body gave him a head start. If Green plays salty, seething basketball, it's at least in part because he knows that he needs to. Potential might keep other guys on the court, but the only way Green could stay in the game was through execution and results.

Theoretically, LeBron James can do everything Green can, and do it better. If Green at center creates a death lineup, James at center could be an immortal one. But James has so much more to worry about, like who handles the playmaking and the effect the physicality of playing center could have on his body. James wants to control the game, and his team needs him to do that in order to win. Green wants to wreak havoc on it, and so much of the Golden State Warriors' strategy is dependent upon him doing just that.

This is where Green's personality and versatility are connected. One might inform the other, but because everything is a potential edge to a player like Green—because everything needs to be an edge—to play quietly would be like forgetting to make the extra pass. Talking trash is part of his game, and another narrow edge among many. If it seems like Green gets away with a lot on the basketball court, it's because he does. And if the tide is starting to turn on Green's likability, it won't bother him in the slightest. His confidence has been realized with historic results, and we're not getting rid of him anytime soon.

Green might not have intentionally hit Steven Adams in the groin in Game 3—it's telling that Green's best defense is that he flails his legs wildly as a matter of course—but he plays with an abandon that could easily lead to such a result, and which is itself a sort of plausible deniability. Green might honestly have considered that a natural basketball move, but a player who kicks his legs up in that situation ten out of ten times is almost certainly fine when one of those times ends with another player keeled over.

This kind of stuff isn't dirty in the despicable premeditated sense. It's more a product of a singular mindset, like a person in a crowded room walking in a straight line to get from Point A to Point B, regardless of the people in his way. Convention doesn't even begin to register with Green. He isn't the most versatile or villainous player in the NBA. He's both, and quite naturally.

The worst mistake the Oklahoma City Thunder could make after Green's one-for-nine, six point performance during their blowout win is thinking that they have him figured out. Scorers need to see the ball go through the basket to regain confidence, but Green does more than that. Green might be one of the five best passers in the league. He'll grab offensive rebounds or block shots. He's an avalanche waiting to happen, even if he scores only six points again.

Russell Westbrook, Kevin Durant, and Steven Adams clearly aren't scared of Draymond Green. That's a pretty good start. If the Thunder roll with their small-ball lineup again—the one that appeared to be their answer to Golden State's death lineup in Game 3—expect the Warriors to utilize Festus Ezeli more going forward. Green will slide over to the power forward and throw lobs to him out of the high post. Or maybe they'll mix it up and play Green at point guard. Green is a triple-double threat in Game 4, for the simple reason that he is playing in Game 4.

There's no pick-your-poison way to handle Green. Steve Kerr will decide how Green poisons you, and even he only has so much control over how Green impacts the game. There isn't a single thing on the basketball court Green can't do, or won't do. By the time these Western Conference Finals are over, his fingerprints will be all over the outcome. Nothing in this upside-down series is more certain than that.