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The Golden State Warriors have one of the most effective offenses in the history of the game. Part of that is the players they have and part of that is the way they’ve been assembled and designed, so that each player’s strengths can enhance, rather than grind against, those of another. Nothing exemplifies this better than the rising superstardom of Draymond Green.

This article is the fourth and final part of a series. If we compare the Warriors to a car (part one), Stephen Curry is the engine that powers it (part two), and Klay Thompson is the streamlined frame (part three). But Green is becoming the wheels that steer this machine, and that’s never been more true than it is now.

With Green’s high basketball IQ, court vision and quick decision-making, he’s an extraordinary player we’ve never seen the likes of before. He passes like a point guard but guards the 5. And he can dominate on offense without dominating the ball on offense. And because of that, all the space we talked about Curry and Thompson creating up till now is fully utilized by Green.

We don’t think of Green as a dominant offensive force because he doesn’t have the ball in his hands a lot, but he is. First, consider that there are only 14 players in the NBA who’ve scored 500 points, contributed to another 500 through their passing (either assist or free throw assist) and touched the ball 3,500 times. Here they are:

You’ll notice something right away about how Green is very different from every player on that list. They’re either point guards (Russell Westbrook) or pseudo-point guards (James Harden). They’re the players who drive their teams, and they have the ball in their hands a lot. This is what makes Green so completely unique.

Based on touch-time and dribbles data we can figure the average number of total points, scored or passed for, a player produces per dribble and per second he has the ball. Let’s look at our same players:

So that shows how Green is completely different than any shot creator in the NBA. He’s generating points both through his scoring and his passing, but he’s doing it without a lot of ball handling. But the way he’s doing it has a lot to do with why the Warriors’ offense is so potent.

Coach Nick at BBallBreakdwon looked at Green’s passing. In the sequence below notice how little time he commands the ball before making a decision and delivering the pass:

Even when he takes the ball up on a break, he’ll bounce it four or five times at most before finding a shooter. He always moves forward with the ball, eying the court for the open shooter. And in those “ho-hum” assists he finds the right guy in the right time. A lot of those little hand-offs and short assists aren’t impressive from an aesthetic standpoint, but like a par in golf, or a three-yard gain football, it’s the little things that are often the difference when you add them up.

According to Seth Partnow of Nylon Calculus, the Warriors aren’t just the fastest transition team in the league, they’re the fastest half-court team in the league, and Green’s ability to read a defense and react with the right pass (or shot when necessary) is a huge part of what makes the whole thing fly.

Also, according to Partnow’s original stats, Green leads the NBA in “Secs/Poss Assist Chance,” which essentially means he creates assist chances when he has the ball with greater frequency than anyone in the league. That’s a big reason the Warriors not only lead the league in assists, but in secondary assists.

Green is the passer of the proverbial hot potato, popping the ball from the initial ball handler who’s created space to the player who’s rolling or cutting to the basket or coming off a screen. Green’s split-second decisions often occur without ever putting the ball on the floor or holding it for more than the blink of an eye. He’s always cognizant of his surroundings, and that awareness and grasp of the game have an enormous influence on it.

That’s also why when Green sits, the Warriors’ assist percentage drops from 70.6 to 64.6. And that’s in spite of the fact that Green spends most of his time on the court with Curry, the league’s (and arguably history’s) best unassisted shot-maker.

The Warriors’ array of weapons for Green to utilize don’t end with Curry and Thompson. Atheltic wings like Andre Iguodala cut to the rim with regualrity. At 15 points per game, they lead the NBA in tallies on such plays, defined as “An interior play where the finisher catches a pass while moving toward, parallel to or slightly away from the basket. This will include back screen and flash cuts as well as times when the player is left open near the basket.”

They’re even more lethal when it comes to hitting players off screens, which are “(typically down screens) going away from the basket toward the perimeter. This includes curl, fades and coming off straight.”

So whether it’s towards the basket or away from it, the Warriors are the best in the league at finding men on the move, and a big part of that is Green.

And he finds his teammates in the right spot, either close to the rim or behind the three-point line. Look at his assist chart:

Little known fact — according to NBAminer, the Warriors are first in the league in assisted field goals at the rim, and Green is a huge part of that. The beneficiaries of his passes are in the “Morey Zones” for 79.5 percent of his assists. No one in the league has more dimes and a better perentage than that.

Green’s teammates shoot 55.7 percent from two on his passes and 46.4 percent from deep. All told, they’ve scored 1,106 points off his passes (whether he was credited with an assist or not) on 826 shots, an effective field goal percentage of 61.3! And 28.4 percent of the time he passes the ball it becomes a scoring opportunity.

Certainly, the stage is set by Curry and Thompson, and coach Steve Kerr has engineered the perfect system to make it all work, but Green’s vision and decision-making turn this offense. It’s a truly symbiotic relationship where his vision and talents make his shooters even better, and they give him space and opportunity to utilize that vision to the fullest.

It’s the combination, not the components, which make the Warriors’ offense so great.