Jeff Green is not a very good basketball player

[Clench123]

good gobs of goo. why the heck should anyone make a thread such as this based upon the FIRST pre-season game and throw out green's entire career?

one game. first game. pre-season game. nothing to conclude based solely on this.

Man...it's not the first game.  We've seen this ever since he got to Boston

[aporel#18]

The Perk/Green trade was a great trade, and while it didn't work 100% for the Cs, you can ask OKC fans. At that moment, they didn't have a backup SF, and Perk was injured and asking for more money than DA was willing to give him. I love Perk, but losing him didn't hurt the Celtics chances to win the championship. We had 4 7 footers when we got Krstic (JO, Shaq, Erden were still here), it was terrible bad luck with injuries (and dirty Karate Hamster injuring Rondo, too) and Doc/Danny roster mismanagement (sending Gody+Erden for nothing to sign Murphy is one of DA's worst moves, but I guess he did so because Doc didn't like Erden nor Krstic).

Jeff Green is not a very good basketball player, he's a great basketball player. He has been inconsistent, and last night he looked like he didn't want the ball, but we'll see if it's just Jeff helping Coach Stevens to evaluate his teammates. When he attacked the basket, he looked good.

He'll be ok, and hopefully better than that when the RS starts.

[Celtics4ever]

It's the first game and this is to be expected.   It's one thing to score 20 when others are guarding PP and KG and another to try to do it without them. 

[SHAQATTACK]

He stumbled ,  he is now the man, and it might take som gettinge use  to learn to carry the team on your shoulders every night or at least try. 

I think he needs to accept the fact he is going to have to carry the load night in nd night out like Kobe, Pierce, KG ..... This is what the greats do.

A lot of pressure.....but he wants to be remembered as a star , he needs to bring it everynite from now till he retires or else he just becomes a another bench player.

His role as off  the benchnJeff Green is over ......now is here.

[ronaldo943]

"Its just one game" argument has become pretty stale when it comes to Jeff Green. Can't believe people haven't found a new rebuttal yet.

He dropped 43 on Bron. Nuff said.  (Kidding)

If only.  He dropped almost all of them on Haslem, Anderson and Battier.  Lebron guarded Pierce almost that entire game.  I remember one time Lebron guarded him and strayed too far which allowed Green to hit a three but I think that was about it.  Late in that game, Wade guarded Green and shut him down, which is no shame because Wade is a great individual defender.

I was kidding. I even put kidding on the post...

[Coach]

I think everyone here is missing the point.  It's not the result that matters in preseason, it’s the effort.

We all hoped that Jeff Green could step in and lead this team in scoring, and possibly work his way on to an all-star team.  He has the ability to do that.  The 43 against the Heat was an indication of that.  The knock on him is that he doesn't play hard every possession, but the comeback to that is that he has always played behind an elite alpha dog, Durant then Pierce, so it was okay for him to take a back seat.

So when this game came around, we wanted to see the Jeff Green that we hope is going to be an all star.    And more importantly, we wanted to see that Jeff Green wanted to be an all-star.

Instead, what we got, was probably the worst effort of his career.  Was it a preseason game?  Yeah.  Does the results matter?  No.  But does effort and attitude matter, when a team (and presumably a player) is trying to forge a new identity?  Yes, absolutly.  On every measure, Jeff Green failed miserably last night.  If he went out and forced up 15 shots, and shot 1-15 but was “all-in” on every play, then we can chalk it up to "its only preseason".

Can Green turn it around?  He can, but I doubt it.  I think he is what he is.  We are going to see a 24 point game sprinkled in among 5 others that he gives us 12-14.

I can tell you this performance made me run to the trade machine and try and work out what we could possibly get for him.  My best case scenario was Gortat from Pheonix, but I doubt that they would do it...

[Eric M VAN]

Here's my take.

At least until Rondo comes back, this is supposed to be Jeff Green's team, he's supposed to be their best player, a leader, if not vocally, then by example...he's supposed to make an impact.

I would think that a player in that position would have looked at the first game of a new era (pre-season or not) as an opportunity to step up and take the reins.

Jeff Green stunk it up in his first pre-season game....excuses about, it's one game or the lane was clogged (we're talking the Raptors here folks, not some world beaters) are a lot of malarkey IMHO.

Green did pretty much what he has done over 6 NBA seasons which is to be, "Just Another guy" and that's just disappointing.

Will he come out and be Mr consistent and show naysayers wrong moving forward? Maybe, but this Dr Jekyll / Mr Hyde thing is pretty much what he's done since he came in the league.

They jury is still out but the verdict on this guy is close at hand.

[KGs Knee]

Jeff Green just doesn't have it in him to be a consistent scorer, particularly 'lead' scorer.  He just doesn't have a killer instinct.  It is what is, and has long been established as so.  Last night's performance was neither surprising nor a big deal.

The 'big deal' is that some fans still seem to think Green will ever be more than he currently is, and foolishly set unrealistic standards that Green will never meet.  Jeff Green is an above average starter, nothing more.

Hopefully Ainge can convince some other GM out there Green's 'potential' still has value, otherwise his contract is just going to hinder any attempt at rebuilding on the fly.  I doubt it though, teams have seen enough of him now to know he isn't worth the money or hassle.

[wdleehi]

Jeff Green is a good player.



Jeff Green is not the star that some think he will magically morph into. 


Once you stop looking for him to be the "star", the easier it will be to watch him.

[Celtics18]

I liked what I saw out of the Celtics last night, a team oriented approach with lots of ball movement and a lot of different guys taking shots.

I think I would have liked it a lot less if the point of the game was to showcase Jeff Green as the "man."

My advice for Jeff Green would be to tune out the inevitable noise and constant criticism that will go along with being the best player (until Rondo returns) on a rebuilding team. 

It will be very interesting to see how he handles being in this position. 

[slamtheking]

He's a good player.

capable of having nights where he plays great as well as nights where he's a non-entity.  I'd be happier if he was just somewhere consistantly in the middle of those extremes so we could have something dependable game in and game out.

[sed522002]

It's going to be interesting to see how Green responds with the full focus of the other team's defense. He's going to have to adjust to that, especially if they take him out of the transition game.

[Fafnir]

All NBA players are good at basketball. Jeff Green is even a good NBA player, he's just not an all-star. But that's okay, he's not paid like one nor should we expect him to be one. Physically he's talented enough maybe to be one, but physical talent is only one part of being an all-star caliber player.

[Roy H.]

Jeff Green is not a very good basketball player, he's a great basketball player.

Eh...  My definition of "great" is a little different, I guess.  "Great" implies that a player plays at a high level consistently, relative to his peers.  That's not Jeff Green, at least not yet.  Green shows flashes of greatness, but historically, he's shown an equal number of flashes of mediocrity.

I hope he can build on his second half from last year.  He had a sustained run of very good basketball, and I'm hoping that that carries forward into this season.

[the_Bird]

That's not Jeff Green, at least not yet. 

This is the part that needs to end, once and for all, this year; there really aren't any more excuses.