Pouring One Out For the Homie Jeff Green
Pouring One Out For the Homie Jeff Green
Alternate title I considered for this post:
In which I have all the feelings about players I like being traded, as illustrated with all the memes I won’t get to use anymore.
Because this is the Internet, and the Internet is for oversharing your feelings and funny pictures.
*cues up Jeff Green Lebonheur commercial*
*cues up Jeff Green and Courtney Lee highlight reel*
Are you crying yet? If not, you are a soulless monster and probably don’t have feelings anyway.
Sad bear is sad
Here we go, with the post I never wanted to write, and yet it’s one I’ve always known was coming. Call it wishful thinking, but I had hoped it was one I wouldn’t have to make until this summer.
As it always seems to go, the Universe and the Grizzlies front office had other plans. In a way it almost seemed engineered for maximum trolling potential.
The Clippers tho
Think about it- Jeff Green to the Clippers 30 milliseconds before the trade deadline.
If you’re a Grizzlies fan that doesn’t hate Jeff Green, this is pretty much the worst way it happens.
Did I mention traded to the Clippers…TO THE F*****G CLIPPERS?
I can acknowledge the need for assets and that it makes sense from a fiscal perspective to try and acquire something of value for expiring contracts on guys the team doesn’t plan to retain.
However, there’s a weird cognitive dissonance at play, and it illustrates just how much the business side of the NBA can at times run counter to the fan side. Because of course you want your team to win, but you also get attached to players for whatever reason and sometimes these things are mutually exclusive.
Jeff Green and Courtney Lee were almost certainly not getting signed to new contracts here over the summer. Still hoped we’d get the rest of the season but nothing else about this season has gone the way it should, so it isn’t exactly a shock this didn’t either.
But as a fan, it sucks when some of your favorite players get traded.
Ghetty Green
It was kind of an unspoken assumption that someone in the front office would be shopping around the league behind the scenes, especially given the number of players on the roster that are due to enter the free agent market over the summer. If the front office could get a return on an expiring contract or two, it’d be a smart thing to do.
All in the Game, indeed.
Now here we are, a full week past the trade deadline, and there’s been plenty of time for reality to set in. There have also been a few games with the new roster additions, so I’ve had a chance to watch them in action, as well as a glimpse of our dearly departed former Grizzlies on their respective new teams. That last one smarts more than a bit, and seeing Jeff Green in a Clippers uniform hurts my soul.
It’s a downer when a player you like gets traded, but it’s like rubbing salt in the wound watching them get traded to your least favorite team, and the Los Angeles Clippers are without a doubt my least favorite team in the NBA.
I’m pretty sure that hating the Clippers is actually written in the Grizz Nation bylaws. Somewhere between the statute on Not Bluffing, and the ordinances regarding how Tricks Shall Be Whooped and Blake Griffin Is Soft.
Zach Randolph, Mayor of Grizz Nation
Anyhow.
Yes, I am still in all of my feelings that I won’t get to watch Jeff Green throw down monster dunks or Courtney Lee knocking down beautiful mid-range pull-ups anymore, at least not in a Grizzlies uniform. Why, you ask? Why be upset about the departure of players that didn’t fit into the long term outlook of the team?
Because they were fun to watch, and I like watching fun basketball.
They were isolated moments of fun basketball during a season that has been decidedly not fun.
I know everyone and their dog has already said Jeff Green was awful and hurt the team over his time with the Grizzlies. People far more knowledgeable than I have weighed in and the overwhelming consensus seems to be Jeff Green is the Worst Player to Ever Play Basketball for the Grizzlies.
In a macro sense that *might* be true (Spoiler: it isn’t), but in a micro sense, I’d be willing to bet he’s produced more offensively for the Grizzlies than either Tayshaun Prince or Quincy Pondexter would have.
I can pick out at least four games this season that we absolutely do not win without Uncle Jeff. At a time when every win counts, I will take them however we can get them.
I don’t have a magic 8 ball to predict how Prince or Pondexter would have 
performed during that same time frame, so instead I decided to look at of each of the aforementioned players’ tenure with the Grizzlies.
Completely removed from any other statistics, these are only for the minutes spent on the court in a Grizzlies uniform:
Quincy Pondexter– 168 games played, 3055 minutes played, 874 points scored
Tayshaun Prince– 139 games played, 3750 minutes played, 969 points scored
Jeff Green- 98 games played, 2905 minutes played, 1234 points scored
Would you like stats with that?
I guess if you (general) expected Jeff Green to be the piece that puts the Grizzlies over the top and carries us to the NBA Finals and beyond, I can see how Uncle Jeff’s time here in We Don’t Bluff City might have felt like a disappointment. I didn’t have any expectation coming into the current season, and maybe that is the reason I could embrace Jeff Green for the player he was because I didn’t expect him to be something he wasn’t.
After the playoff series against the Warriors, it seemed painfully obvious that Green was a role player, a great sixth man off the bench. But for whatever reasons, Coach Joerger was still trying to thrust Green into the starting line-up for most of the year, a place he didn’t really have any business being.
ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED?
When he became the perpetual scapegoat and whipping boy for the struggles the team was having this season, it stuck in my craw more than a little. I am by no means arguing that Green was without flaws, but the impact of said flaws has been greatly overstated in the larger context of this Grizzlies team.
Was he a defensive liability at times, did he sometimes do really dumb basketball things? Absolutely. But his positive contributions far outweighed his Shaqtin’ a Fool worthy moments, and based just in terms of offensive production, Green was an improvement over Tayshaun Prince and Quincy Pondexter combined.
Forgive me for stating what should be obvious, but if a role player could have such a tremendous impact on the performance of our franchise players, could drag down the team in such a manner, then maybe, just maybe…there were bigger problems to be addressed.
But MOM, Jeff said that Ultron was a better villain than Magneto
And so now it is with a heavy heart, that I say goodbye to the former Grizzly Jeff Green. Thank you for some of the most entertaining moments in what has turned out to be a rather dismal season.
***All stats from http://www.basketball-reference.com/***
Doesn't bluff, stays grinding.
Bluff City Born and Memphis Made
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