One of the major questions coming into the season was how we would replace the production from our graduating seniors, especially Travis Walton and Goran Suton. It was hoped that improvements from Draymond Green and Delvon Roe, plus contributions from Nix/Herzog/Sherman would be enough to make up for the production of Suton. At this point in the season, one of those players, by himself, is more than making up for the loss of Suton, at least on the offensive end. Ladies (if there are any that follow this blog) and Gentlemen, I give you Draymond Green - the new, improved Goran Suton.

I've compared tempo free stats from Suton's senior season with Green's production so far this year using Statsheet.com. They are pretty comparable in terms of minutes played, so these stats are not influenced by Green excelling in limited minutes. In every offensive category save 3 point shooting percentage, Green is even with or ahead of Suton, and he is holding his own on the defensive end as well. Green has a higher offensive rating (9.7 points higher), slightly higher usage rate,  a higher effective FG percentage (6.9 points higher) and is pretty much even on the offensive boards, although Suton does edge him there. He also has a significantly higher assist rate than Suton and a slightly lower turnover rate. Green also shoots slightly more free throws per 40 possessions so he is getting to the line as often as Suton did. Basically, as a sophmore Green is already outperforming Suton's senior year as far as offensive stats go. I looked at conference only stats - which obviously should be taken with a grain of salt for Green as he has only played 3 conference games this year - and these trends pretty much all hold if we restrict the analysis to conference games.

Defense is harder to measure statistically. My impressions of Green so far this year is that he generally plays good D and is not slacking off on that end of the court. We could undoubtedly use Suton's height, and I don't see Green as being capable of slowing down a guy like Cole Aldrich the way Suton did in last year's tournament. Basically for D, we have stats on steals, blocks, and rebounds. Green's defensive rebounding percentage is slightly higher than Suton's was last year. His block percentage is also higher, which is surprising considering that he is at a significant height disadvantage. Looking at all games - conference and non conference - Green has higher block and steal percentages and a slight edge in defensive rebounding. If we restrict the analysis to conference games, Suton has a slight lead in steal and defensive rebounding but Green's block percentage is higher. Statistically, they seem to be fairly equal on defense. Although the stats call this a wash my gut instincts tell me that Green is not equal to the Suton of last year on the defensive end - he just doesn't have the savvy to play at that level yet, but if his effort doesn't flag he should get there eventually. He is more than holding his own so far on the offensive end, so a strong argument could be made that the overall effect of replacing Suton's minutes with him is pretty much a draw. Not bad for a guy who came in a little over a year ago underheight and overweight.