Jeff Green

[Marlo Stanfield]

Hi guys, Raptors fan here. My team needs a small forward this off season and Jeff Green is a possibility it free agency. But I've heard he's more suited to play the 4. Can you guys give me a scouting report on Jeff? Is he worth a contract to play the 3 for us?

[Krodis]

I don't think he's particularly well-suited to play any position, really. He lacks lateral quickness at the 3, and lacks height and rebounding at the 4.

I wouldn't offer anything substantial for him. He has some skills, but a lot of flaws.

[OlDirtMcBert]

Jeff Green is excellent and I wish he still played for the Thunder. He's got enough range and quickness to play the wing, but only in spurts. He's also able to play the post, both offensively and defensively, but really shouldn't be left in that spot all game against guys like Gasol.

He's a stretch four, and it's up to coaches to use that correctly. He's a decent ball handler, a decent defender, good rebounder and he's an excellent pick n roll hedge defender. He shows on the ball very strong, and recovers quickly.

He's a very good player, and any team would improve with him. As for the Thunder, they had to trade value to get a low post defender good enough to stop Bynum...

[sonictecture]

I think anytime you have to qualify your analysis by saying, "he can do this or that for short periods of time", then the player probably isn't suited to do any of the things you claimed he capable of.

The problem for Toronto is they already have two forwards with similar games to Green in Kleiza and Johnson. Both of these players carry more weight than Green, but all three fall into the "they can do multiple things for a small amount of time designation".

Green got a lot of benefit of the doubt because it was assumed that OKC misused him due to the presence of Durant. I think that is incorrect, I think OKC used him as well as any team can and Green simply had deficiencies in his game that made him expendable. If you have a very good center that rebounds and protects the paint, then Green can bring value to your team. If you don't then Green makes any front court weakness weaker because he cannot consistently rebound or defend the position.

[Marlo Stanfield]

Thanks for the responses guys.

I think he's an interesting option for Toronto just because he's better than both Johnson and Kleiza. Jeff Green backed up by James Johnson (the human swiss army knife as we like to call him) sounds intriguing to me. Kleiza can gtfo for all I care...

[fallacy]

He's much much much better as a 3 than a 4. Green might have been the worst starting defensive 4 in the NBA in his last year in OKC, it was terrible to watch.

[wiff]

I actually think Jeff Green is a decent player as long as he is covering someone his size or slightly smaller.

If he has to cover someone who is longer than he is, he simply get abused. But I always thought he was a solid perimeter defender.

Bad news though is that he isn't a very good long range shooter although he seems to let it fly at will.

So you could say he is a stretch 4 that can't really stretch.

[OlDirtMcBert]

I think anytime you have to qualify your analysis by saying, "he can do this or that for short periods of time", then the player probably isn't suited to do any of the things you claimed he capable of.

The problem for Toronto is they already have two forwards with similar games to Green in Kleiza and Johnson. Both of these players carry more weight than Green, but all three fall into the "they can do multiple things for a small amount of time designation".

Green got a lot of benefit of the doubt because it was assumed that OKC misused him due to the presence of Durant. I think that is incorrect, I think OKC used him as well as any team can and Green simply had deficiencies in his game that made him expendable. If you have a very good center that rebounds and protects the paint, then Green can bring value to your team. If you don't then Green makes any front court weakness weaker because he cannot consistently rebound or defend the position.

He got traded because of resigning issues as much as need for a Center. Also, he did help turn a 26win team into a playoff team by starting...every...game. So, that's qualifying for an entire season...