The whole, "But Jeff Green doesn't make a crapton of money. His contract is like 80% reasonable" counter argument seems to miss the point for me. The argument, for me at least, is not "Can Jeff Green justify his contract and roster spot?"
Jeff Green is a NBA caliber athlete and player in his prime. With an appropriate supporting cast (on of which he is not a top 3 or hopefully 4 player) I don't doubt that Green could play a role as a capable starting forward.
And at 9 million a season, that's legitimate, especially considering the way starting caliber athletes are paid.
But the real question for me is "Should we hold on to Jeff Green, knowing he isn't a franchise caliber player, who is paid like an elite role player (a term I'm trying to insert into our vernacular) when his presence won't move the needle very far in terms of wins or losses?"
The real question is should we move him for assets we could actually use when/if we want to trade them in for something better while developing our own young players, or should we keep him in the hopes that if we turn it around and right the ship, he'll be a viable starter and not on an untenable contract?
I think that turn around is more than 1 season away. I think the writing is on the wall there. Why not move Jeff Green if we can get something out it?
TP for keepin' it real.
It's funny with all these guys getting paid monster contracts, Jeff has gone from average to maybe even slightly overpaid in some people's minds, to being a nice, solid, good value contract at 8-9 million a year. He will probably opt out now, which is funny because many people (myself included) were worried that he'd opt in at the end of this season when now the odds are that he'll likely opt out and search for a bigger deal like 4-5 years at $40 million.
Probably a good topic in itself.
I think we need to trade him now while we can get something for him because he's taking minutes from Turner (another trade asset) and James Young. Get a late first rounder or take on an expiring as well to get two picks out of him.
If he walks in a years time for nothing then what's the point of keeping him now and letting him win us an extra 5 games this year?
He's an elite role player and the argument I have against Jeff is the same argument I have against signing guys like Greg Monroe- we are currently looking to either cut salary with rookie deals or expirings for assets, or we are looking to sign top 20 NBA players. Guys like Jeff and Greg Monroe are forever riding their donkey off into the sunset towards no man's land and they need at least 2-3 better players to make the most of their skills.