Another night at the office for Draymond Green of Michigan State

Sometimes it can be hard to gauge the level of  a player’s greatness.

For Michigan State’s Draymond Green it is sometimes difficult because his value to the Spartans goes much farther than simple statistics. His leadership is among the best in the history of the program and his relationship with coach Tom Izzo helps create the amazing chemistry that has the Spartans atop the Big Ten.

His numbers aren’t bad either, and in Thursday’s victory over Wisconsin, he was so good — and consistent — that the numbers were almost not noticed. Spartan fans almost expect greatness from Green on a nightly basis, and against the Badgers, he had 20 points and 10 rebounds. It was his 14th double-double of the season, the most in the Big Ten.

Great numbers, for sure, but even Tom Izzo listed almost five other players before getting to Green in his post-game press conference. Everyone deserved credit on this night as Izzo described it as a “total MSU team win.” But there is no doubting what Green means to this team. He won’t get a double-double every night, even if we all expect it, but it’s almost getting to the point where the real news will be if he doesn’t.

Izzo was asked after the game if Green is so consistent that he almost gets overlooked at times.

“They probably do, but there are two people who don’t overlook him, me and my staff and my team,” Izzo said. “As long as those two never overlook him, nothing else matters. I appreciate watching him every minute. He got tired tonight, it was the first time he I saw him so tired that he had a couple let downs in there. I took him out and he’s just grown up so much, I said that’s not good enough and he understood. I think he’s learning how to do a better job of that and boy, for a guy that only got nine shots, he stills does a lot of damage with all the other things he does.”

Everything he does means everything to this Michigan State team. Izzo said Green had “another night at the office.” As long as Green continues to go to work, there’s no telling how far he can lead this group of Spartans.