Draymond Green

Championships: 3     MVP's: 0     All NBA: 2     All Star: 3     All Defense: 5

Other notable achievements: Defensive Player of the Year in 2017

Notable statistics: PPG 9.1     RPG: 6.9     APG: 4.9     SPG: 1.4     BPG: 1.1

Draymond Green would be the short priced favourite for Draft Pick of the Decade, if that were an award, with the future Hall of Famer going 35th overall in 2012.

Stats don't really to Green any justice. He's the only player in this list to average single figure points for their career. Even when he does put up notable statistical feats, scoring isn't involved. For example: Green is the only player in NBA history to record a triple double without double figure points.

What Green does bring to the table, is a level of defensive play that nobody else in our All Decade teams can match. The man is a defensive savant and the best in a generation (alongside Larry Bird, perhaps the best ever) at diffusing 2 on 1's.

Curry might be the lovable face of the Warriors. Steve Kerr the brain. Klay Thompson the tireless legs. Draymond Green is the heart and soul. He is the man that sets the emotional tone – for better or worse – for the greatest team of the decade.

Dirk Nowitzki

Championships: 1     MVP's: 0     All NBA: 3     All Star: 6     All Defense: 0

Other notable achievements: Finals MVP in 2011

Notable Statistics: PPG 18.3     RPG: 6.09     3P%: 38.3%

Like Wade, Dirk did his best work in the 00's, but we can't deny his contributions in the first half of this decade.

The 2011 title was of course the peak. Dirk was the lone true star on a team full of talented, but retread veterans. He took on the Heat juggernaut and against the odds took home Larry and the Finals MVP.

Whilst the team drifted post championship, making moves that beggared belief, Dirk kept on being Dirk. Whilst he began to slow down around 2014, he was still putting up 18 and 6 a night in 2015/16 as a 37 year old.

Dirk and the Mavs stayed loyal to each other as his career wound down, just long enough to see the next European saviour arrive in town.

Who would have thought that when he arrived as a skinny, uncertain kid, that 20 years later Dirk would do Dallas. And Dallas was well satisfied.

Al Horford

Championships: 0     MVP's: 0     All NBA: 1     All Star: 5     All Defense: 1

Notable statistics: PPG 14.9     RPG: 8.1     APG: 3.6     BPG: 1.2     3P%: 37.0%

The quiet achiever of our NBA All Decade squads.

The numbers don't jump off the page – they never do with Horford. What Horford does, however, is win basketball games. Horford's teams have made the playoffs in literally every season of his career.

Defensively, Horford is a quieter version of Draymond Green – a defensive genius who relies on sound positioning and incredible anticipation as much as athleticism. On offense, he's an absolute Swiss Army Knife. He began his career as a low post bruiser with great footwork, evolving to a mid range shooter, facilitator in a whirring Hawks offense, and eventually into an elite stretch 5.

As he ages, he's not the most dominant physical force, but he's smart and plenty strong enough to flummox the behemoth that is new teammate Joel Embiid.