I guess what I am trying to say is that I don't want a "best" or a "4th best" player...I want a team of team players who all recognize and fill their roles.
I agree, although I think that one "role" that pretty much every title team has is that of "superstar."
Which is to say, most really good teams have 2-3 guys who do a LOT of different things while also carrying a major load offensively (i.e. using 20-30 percent of the team's possessions).
That is a really important role for those guys to play, because having that role filled by 2-3 players makes it much easier to find guys in the other 6-7 spots in the rotation to fill the team's remaining needs. So you can get guys who are just really good at one or two things (e.g. the classic 3-and-D players like Bowen).
When people decry Green for not being capable of being "the guy," what they're saying essentially is that Green can't fill that "superstar" role for a team. That rankles a certain subset of people who see that Green is capable of scoring 15-25 points on any given night, and think that means he's star caliber. The thing is, simply being able to score a good number of points efficiently isn't enough to fill that "superstar" role, as I explained above.
So if Green isn't the star guy, what role does he fill on a really good team? If he's not getting a lot of touches offensively, he doesn't bring that much to the table because he doesn't have any other elite skills. If your team already has 2-3 guys taking 20-30 shots a game, Green is basically just a really expensive offensive pressure valve (pretty much the role he played for the Celtics last year).
That's actually a pretty decent and valuable role, but if you're going to pay a guy 9-10 million dollars a year to be in that role, you're going to need to have some really good guys (on cheap contracts) in the other spots in your rotation to connect the rest of the dots for winning.
A team like Miami is a good illustration of that idea. On Miami, Green would get tons of nice looks. He could easily score 14-15 points a game in a sixth man role with very good efficiency, similar to what Beasley is doing for them this year. But Miami can slot much less talented players than Green into that role and still have success because their 3 best guys -- particularly LeBron -- do so much that they pretty much just need spot up shooters (especially from the corner) who can defend and rebound.
Since LeBron, Wade, and Bosh are easily capable of scoring 60+ points together, Miami doesn't really need a player in Green's role to take more than 10 shots a game, at most.
But a player who can shut down the opponent's best player, allowing James to save energy on offense, while also spacing the floor, grabbing rebounds, and hitting a ton of corner three shots, could be a lot more valuable than Green. Similarly, a big man who grabs a very high percentage of offensive rebounds, finishes looks inside at a very high rate, and also blocks or bothers shots at the rim is very useful.
That's how Miami might have more use for Shane Battier or Chris Andersen than Jeff Green. But if your team needs somebody to take 15-20 shots and play big minutes, Green is a much better bet. He just can't be expected to also create for others, rebound, force turnovers, protect the paint, shut down the opponent's best player, etc.
Topic: Jeff Green couldn't even be the FOURTH best player on a championship team. (Read 25652 times)