The Memphis Grizzlies defeated the San Antonio Spurs 117-116 last night in a triple-overtime thriller that is already an early favourite for game of the year. While there were plenty of former All-Stars and future Hall of Famers like VORP (value above replacement player) at 4.2, BPM (box plus/minus) at 4.7, win shares at 2.7, and our own nERD at 7.6 (which estimates how many games over .500 a league-average team would finish a season with him as one of its starters). He also leads the Spurs in net rating (+15) on the strength of his career bests in both offensive (114) and defensive rating (99).

Throwing a bunch of metrics at you obviously won't make you believe that he's been more valuable than the other Spurs, especially considering they're a team built on defined roles and a (relatively) equally-shared workload. Still, as the Spurs quietly climb the standings (17-9) and our NBA Team Power Rankings (sixth) while all eyes are on about a dozen other teams, it's important to realize how much a role player like Danny Green is making a difference and doing his part to keep the defending champs still very much in contention.