1) There are real differences between the games and precise athletic abilities of Draymond Green and Grant Williams. For instance, Draymond Green at his current weight and in his current shape is notably faster in a straight line and quicker laterally. Green also is a naturally more gifted passer and has more versatile playmaking skills. And Green is certainly the more talented defensive player.

However, there are similarities as well. Both are incredibly strong, incredibly cerebral and intuitive players, who are undersized for their likely best NBA position; four and small-ball five. Both are very good at reading the floor and passing. While Green is the stronger dribbler and passer, Williams does have real ability there. (Check out Cole Zwicker’s recent piece on Grant’s passing here.) And in Williams’ favor, he’s the player with far, far better touch in terms of scoring the basketball in close, from the mid-post and from the deep mid-range.

That last one is a factor that could end up giving Williams, should he add distance to that touch, the lineup versatility to play very successfully as a big wing, which Green’s inconsistent jump shot kind of takes away from him. Imagine in this latter mold a player more like Jae Crowder, or if shot translation goes really well, perhaps a player like Khris Middleton. A player who might have trouble finding lots of space to maneuver, but who can make difficult shots in tight spots at very high rates and thus doesn’t need space.

2) That’s not really the player I want to imagine right now. Rather, I’d like to look at the way in which the Warriors use Draymond Green, and especially how they use him playing off of Stephen Curry. Then I want to look at how Grant Williams’ similarities to Draymond Green and notable strengths over him as a scorer, at least given these actions, could make Williams an even more valuable offensive player within these sets, again provided that he adds distance to his jumper.

Let’s look at the Durant-less Warriors of Game 6 vs Houston as an example.

3) First a wide open catch-and-shoot 3.

That’s a play that really happens because Houston doesn’t respect Green, as you can see Tucker sinking to help on Bogut after the Warriors got a smaller point guard switched onto him. This in itself is an example of a play we likely won’t see from Williams if Williams is successful, since Houston wouldn’t leave his jumper to double a post player. However, what you could very well see in its place is a player the size of Chris Paul having to guard one the size of Andrew Bogut, since everyone else on the floor is a shooter as well.

4) That could be one advantage Grant Williams could have over Draymond Green in Golden State’s offense. At least long term, since it could take more than a summer or two to develop NBA range. However, in the short term there are many plays in which Williams could be very good playing off Curry. The main play type I’d like to focus on is Williams in the short roll. It was a play we saw time and again at the end of Game 6, as Houston began to trap Curry on nearly every Green screen.

Here we see Dray drive and make a 4-on-3 pass to Looney for a layup on a rotating defense, an easy play we could imagine Williams making as well.

5) However, I’d like to point out something else about this play before moving on. Namely, look at all this empty space. It’s a virtual sea that Green has to swim.

Essentially half the court is open, from the rim to behind the 3-point line. Of course, the highest percentage play, or at least the one that ends up with the highest percentage shot, is the one Green made. But imagine if Green had touch on his jumper. We see a wide open 3 available or five different places between the low post and 3-point line he could pull up.

And there are situations you’d want the short roller to be able to shoot. Let’s say James Harden anticipates Looney’s cut behind Capela and sinks closer to the passing lane, forcing the Green pass to go to Iguodala.

At that point, PJ Tucker, who was trapping Curry, is now recovering back to the play and is close enough to get to Iguodala, force a reset and thereby short circuit the play. And if Tucker was moving with more urgency back towards Iguodala (no need with how Harden covered the play), he could even be in position to intercept the pass. If the Rockets had guarded the play like that, it would be optimal to have a player in the short roll who could make a 3 or one could trust to make mid-range jump shots with a high degree of efficiency.

(Note that the lob to Looney is not available because of Capela’s length. It has to be a bounce pass.)

6) Now Grant Williams is a master of the mid-range. Per hoop-math, in his junior year Williams had 101 makes on 2-point jumpers while shooting over 52 percent. And more than a few of them, unlike the ones available to Green here, were heavily contested.

7) This next play is an example of a play in which a mid-range master could have some use.

Green drives and has no passing openings, but can’t finish over Capela. Whereas Williams could pull up before the play ever devolves to this point.

8) Now I’m not arguing that Williams would replace Green in these actions if the Warriors acquired him. He’d be unlikely to have the synergy with Curry that Green does, a connection that comes from years and years of playing together.

The dribble flip to Curry to a back screen on Chris Paul in one motion is also a particular piece of Draymond basketball brilliance that seems simple and easy only because Green is a basketball genius.

9) What I am arguing is that Grant Williams can spell Green in these actions without the Warriors losing much, if anything, on offense, and perhaps gaining in Williams’ scoring ability whatever they lose in Green’s innate basketball brilliance. In addition, Williams’ presence on the team would then allow Green to spend more time playing alongside other pairings of players who need the value he adds.

10) In addition, if Williams does extend his jumper in time, there’s no reason he couldn’t play alongside Green as a wing or a power forward when Green slides to center, thus unlocking other lineup possibilities. That’s pretty much the definition of a player who provides meaningful bench depth. A player who might allow an impact starter to sit, given the right context, without offensive drop off to the team, while also providing versatility to the team given other situations.

It’s really this kind of player that’s been missing from Golden State’s roster since Durant signed with them and with Livingston due some to age becoming slightly diminished and thus less versatile.

11) The other type of player the Warriors have missed in recent years, or at the very least, the type of player I’ve missed on the Warriors is the “Pseudo Curry”. This is a player who can kind of do Curry things scoring the ball, if you squint and make your vision very bad, but really doesn’t have any of Curry’s special qualities. You know, super fun guys like Ian Clark and Leandro Barbosa that would be kind of perfect playing off of Durant. And this draft has more than a few possible stand-ins there as well.

Carsen Edwards is the more highly valued one, for good reason, not only because of his easy pull-up range under pressure but because of his strong frame and the fact that there’s some defensive ability there. (There’s also a lot higher possibility that Carsen Edwards is in the Arenas/Jason Terry/Damian Lillard/CJ McCollum group of players who improve as passers later on. His vertical pop as a sign of sudden athletic ability is underrated, and he’s the most likely player this year to generate traps and thus easy passes because of his easy jumper depth.)

Another possibility is Justin Wright-Foreman, a much more gifted version of Ian Clark in terms of the insane diversity of his shot-making. And much like Clark, he very well could go undrafted.

Wright-Foreman was basically the Lou Williams of college basketball. Though part of me does wonder if he might be better at passing the basketball in an NBA system and to what degree?

Skip passes like this one are the kinds that break defenses. It’s followed by a play in which JWF shows great patience in pick-and-roll, and then a pass which was a turnover, but which would have led a more athletic roller into a dunk. Then we see a split and drive to dish under the basket of the type that almost always turns into a scoring opportunity in the NBA, and in the congested college game turns into merely a missed shot.

We could perform the same kind of exercise with a number of players. A few series of good passing sequences within a game that went for naught. What separates Wright-Foreman from basically all of them is the possibilities he might unlock with his pull-up jumper.

The one issue right now as regards the shot is the consistency under pressure as he shoots from further and further away. However, it’s not out of the question that Wright-Foreman, only 21 years-old, adds depth to his jumper as he gets older and stronger. And if so, he could end up the type of player who, in a few years time, ends up demanding traps, a situation which once one figures out how to deliver that pass over length and under pressure (Curry has a wide variety of ways to handle this) greatly simplifies the reads one has to make.

Quietly, Wright-Foreman is a player with some upside and some possibility as offensive force. And there’s no better team, save perhaps the Trail Blazers, to potentially teach him how to execute on it than the Warriors. Given how it seems the NBA views both Darius Garland and Coby White, not to mention Carsen Edwards, I’m a little surprised JWF remains in the possibly undrafted area.

Regardless, as Ian Clark replacement being a smaller, less talented defensive player who gets hunted but who can get it back with scoring prowess, he could be really fun coming off the Warriors bench.