Jeff Green

A few articles have come out today quoting Jeff Green as saying that "coming to Boston was a tough situation". He says they already played together for years, had already won a championship together and that there was a lot to absorb in a short period of time.

Critics claim that his difficulty in absorbing the new defensive schemes is proof that Jeff Green's IQ is not that high. Others will say that it's not fair to judge a player based upon being thrown into the fire halfway through a season.

Here are some /36mpg stats on Jeff Green before the trade, at OKC, and after the trade. The @ OKC stats are regular font, the @ Boston fonts are bold.

Stats do not reveal how well he operated within the system, but they provide some basis for thoughtful posts, and that's what I'm aiming for. What do you think?

My opinion is that the much higher PFs is evidence that he was late in his defensive rotations. His much improved fg% on fewer fga tells me that he is a steady shooter (i.e. he doesn't need to always get the ball in "his spot", since Rondo didn't know "his spot" like Westbrook did) and, in fact, playing with a pass-first point guard has helped him get better shots. They tell me he never was and still isn't much of a rebounder, which means we still have that problem. They suggest to me that his steals come off of individual defensive play and not out of the system, which would indicate they should only get better (or his IQ really is as bad as his critics say). They tell me that Jeff Green was about as effective with Boston as he was with OKC. The question then is: is he really as good as Danny thinks, or is he nothing more than a solid but unimpressive player in the NBA? BTW, one could come to the same conclusion about Perk; solid, but unimpressive overall.

@ OKC/@ Boston
12.3fga/11.9fga, 43.7fg%/48.5fg%, 3.6-3ptfga/1.6-3ptfga, 30.4%-3ptfgt%/29.6%-3ptfg%, 3.6fta/3.7fta, 81.8ft%/79.4ft%, 5.4reb/5.1reb, 1.8ast/1.1ast, .8stls/.8stls, .4blks/.9blks, 1.5TOVs/1.4TOVs, 2.8PFs/4.0PFs, 14.8ppg/14.9ppg.

bob

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Guess my question would be whom was he on the court with in accumulating those numbers. Seems if he managed to about match them being thrown into a tough situation, I would think they would get better.

But then again with this season in limbo and perhaps no preseason ( or a shortened one) to figure things out it may take another year to see if Green is really Jeff and .... errrr not the other one, Gerald. (or at least closer to Gerald as there can only be one Gerald)

beat

beat wrote:Guess my question would be whom was he on the court with in accumulating those numbers. Seems if he managed to about match them being thrown into a tough situation, I would think they would get better.

But then again with this season in limbo and perhaps no preseason ( or a shortened one) to figure things out it may take another year to see if Green is really Jeff and .... errrr not the other one, Gerald. (or at least closer to Gerald as there can only be one Gerald)

beat

beat,

Good question. Sam's a big fan of looking at 5-man units and so am I. Here's the link to 82games.com, where they list the top 5-man units for the Celtics. http://www.82games.com/1011/1011BOS2.HTM

Jeff Green is on 3 of the top 20 5-man units (as ranked by time on floor together, so it's understandable that he's not going to be on a lot of them, same with Krstic). The winning % on those 5-man units is 60%, 50% and 42.8%, ranking them (by winning %) #6, 4 tied for #10 and #14. The other units that are tied with them for tenth are units of (Rondo-Allen-Pierce-Garnett-Krstic) and (Robinson-Wafer-Daniels-Davis-Erden) and (Rondo-Allen-Pierce-Green-Garnett). Considering that Shaq wasn't playing, Green was necessarily playing on units without a strong 1st string center. For a weak rebounding SF/PF, it IS a tough assignment to be on a unit without a rebounding machine.

There's also a chart that shows eFG of these units. Without going into similar detail the unit with Rondo, Allen, Pierce, Green and KG has a very good eFG (go figure, gunners galore!) but the one with Rondo (non-shooter), West, Green, Davis (during his slump?) and Krstic was execrable.

Regardless, due to the short amount of time Green and Krstic played with us, the stats for these units should be taken with a grain of salt because of the relatively few minutes they played together. For example, the unit that had a 60% winning % only played together for a total of 34.9 minutes and the team with the 42% winning percentage (and the 30.3% eFG) only played together for 23.2 minutes (perhaps because they were shooting like shit and weren't winning).

If you want to see Gerald Green, you should put on a red flannel shirt and get a hunting permit. Or go to Russia.

bob

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Hi,
I wouldn't rely much on that stats. Only 26(?) games, the team, Celtics, were in flux (kind of), end of the season, etc.
For the future I think he's a very valuable addition to the Celtics roster.

AK

Bob,

It really seems best to wait and see how Jeff Green can (hopefully) contribute to the Celtics this season. The shambles that was the rotation after he joined the club last season was rife with discontinuity.

• The three five-man combinations involving Jeff that were reported by 82games comprised only 18% of the minutes he played for the Celltics. Thus, 82% of his playing time was spent with a plethora of largely makeshift combinations—none of which played as many as 23 minutes together.

• Based on the three combinations that were reported, Jeff played 53% of his Celtics minutes at SF and 47% at PF. Another form of discontinuity—this one in terms of his roles with a new team.

• Jeff appears to be the kind of player who performs best within the flow of the team chemistry rather than being a catalyst himself. Unfortunately the team (especially the second unit) never achieved anything like the anticipated level of chemistry last season. I sensed that Jeff struggled a lot by having to create his shot well beyond his comfort zone.

I happen to believe that, although he's 6' 9", that doesn't mean he's got serious power forward potential at 235 pounds. I bet he got particularly few rebounds while playing that position.

What he does seem to have is the potential to be a highly productive wing man in the open court and someone who can effectively post up opposing SF in a half court game. It seems as though the Celtics are gradually moving in the direction of players who will flourish in a running game and will benefit from the fact that Jeff could require double coverage when in the hole.

IF there's a legitimate preseason this year, it will be interesting to see how Doc plays it with Jeff. One of the reasons I hope they resign Glen Davis is so Jeff will play meaningful minutes at the SF position, even if it means dropping Pierce back to shooting guard on occasion in order to spell Ray.

Sam

I still believe that Jeff Green is the we saw this year and in Oklahoma. He might get marginally better, but there's not much more to him.

As I mentioned before the knock on him coming out of college was his lack of aggressiveness as he would disappear in games at times and I think he's still like that.

He's a solid 3rd option and that's about it.

Green averaged 16 ppg and 7 rpg in 2010 playing with a shoot first PG in OKC. I say his numbers increase - and if he gets even close to 20/10 playing with Rondo - he will be a very important contributor.

Is he a Hall of Famer - probably not. But potential to be a perennial All Star from Boston - absolutely.

I just don't know how anyone can make any sort of an acurate judgement based on so little time with a team in flux.

And the sorry thing is we might not be able to this year either.

beat

He really didn't sound like a happy camper. But, then again, can you blame him, leaving a young team like Oklahoma with one of the most exciting young
players in the league? I really wonder exactly what they are going to offer him to make him happy to be here. Time will tell.

RosalieTCeltics wrote:He really didn't sound like a happy camper. But, then again, can you blame him, leaving a young team like Oklahoma with one of the most exciting young
players in the league? I really wonder exactly what they are going to offer him to make him happy to be here. Time will tell.

Rosalie,

You make a good point.

Much was made of the team's feelings about losing Perk; but what about Green's thoughts on having to leave OKC? I wouldn't have been happy about the trade if I was him. These things can and do affect a player's performance.

My guess is in addition to a dollar figure what may be needed to make Green happy would be some assurance his minutes will be high now and that his name will soon appear on the top line of the depth chart for SF.

Regards