When Jeff Green was on his little 5 to 6 game hot streak 10 days ago, this blog boomed with the "Green needs to start", "Time to sit Pierce", "Free Jeff Green" and al sorts of other ridiculous threads.
When I posted in those threads that Pierce was still, even at 35 years old a better all around player than Jeff Green, that Jeff Green was a passive player that would go through wild ups and downs in consistency and that Jeff Green was simply doing what Jeff Green does, which is play well for a few games and then disappear for a few, a lot of Jeff Green fans jumped all over me and some others who said the same thing.
But here we are after 25 games and Jeff Green is going through his normal roller coaster ride through the season. He started off slow and passive. He was a horrid rebounder who couldn't score and who's defense was just plain bad. Then the ball started dropping some, he played with confidence and played much better for a few games.
But that confidence breeds complacency in Jeff Green and now we see the result. Over his last five games he's been back to the passive, non-rebounding, poor shooting, bad defense Jeff Green. In that time he has shot 34% from the field, 30% from 3PT land, he didn't shoot more than one free throw in 4 of those 5 games and averaged just 8 PPG and 3 RPG in his usual 23 MPG.
$9 million a year, 4 year contracts are given out to performers that will give you a consistent, everyday, effort and production. That has never been Jeff Green's calling card. He's playing exactly like Jeff Green has always played. Its the reason OKC would give him the money he wanted and its why Danny Ainge should have given him a large, you have to earn it, one year deal and not the contract he got.
And if Green said no, Danny should have let him walk?
Absolutely.
So who's the backup sf, Joseph or Lee?
Honestly don't remember who was available. If the Celtics weren't committed to Jeff early on my guess is after solidifying the SG position after Ray left, back up SF would have been their next priority.
If you remember our cap position at the time it was either get jeff green with his rights or sign some minimum level floopsy. Pietrus wanted more than minimum level money. I would rather Jeff green than some flog that 29 other teams have rejected. This signing was the right move to try and be competitive at small forward this year.
A $40 mil back-up for PP?
This is what dumb teams do. And why they stink in many cases for decades, not years. Because typically, smart organizations don't ever go where you just went. You sign impact players to big deals, and role players to intelligent short reasonable contracts.... because they're replaceable.
And if you're not really good, let it go -- you're more likely to get good by being bad then you are by being mediocre.
Only All-stars are worth >mid-level. No Bargnanis. No Ty Thomases. No Villenuevas. For Pete's sake, Barbosa is a better basketball player than Green.
I challenge anyone to suggest what they feel the Celtics would be missing without Green. If the only answer is "a back-up to Pierce", or even worse "a SF once Pierce heads towards retirement", then you know how bad the signing is.