knucklecup said:
I'm not sure why Green being out scored by the opposition in a line up that featured bad players is surprising.
In my opinion, you have to build an NBA team based on what type of a player that person could be on a Championship contender.
For a short period of time, Green was considered a hot commodity but that quickly died out following his lucrative contract, widely ridiculed by the scribes.
The question that needs to be asked is what type of a player can Green become?
Is he a fourth best player on a Championship team or a third piece ala Ray Allen?
I think these are linked a bit. Its not shocking that Green isnt a difference maker with subpar talent around him, but that speaks to his ceiling.
When it was PP & awful crew in 06/07 he was still a difference maker offensively. With PP their Ortg was 108.2 and a defensive rating of 108.6 but without it was 99.7 / 106.5 Then look at Rays last 2 years in Seattle before he came here, story was similar to PPs, the team was average with him on the court but very much below average with him off the court.
With Green even in his best year last year, we were average with him on and off the court. IMO, if a guy is at his very best and he still isnt showing he can really impact your team, regardless of the talent around him, he cant be your 3rd best player on a title team either.
knucklecup said:
Same thing happened with Taj Gibson with the Bulls. He's a solid player but he's only a starting caliber player on a team that will compete for a Championship if he's surrounded by Lebron James or Chris Paul/Dwight Howard or some absurdly talented combo... You just can't pay these guys that type of dough and get away with it while being held to a salary cap.
I think Rondo is a starting PG on a Championship caliber team and Green could be the starting SF if Dwight Howard and others were acquired but that isn't feasible, meaning that he'll likely never come close to winning a title with the Celtics or while playing for the roughly $10 million he's currently playing for.
This is what I hate about the NBA CBA, and it really ruins its own product. They kind of had to sign Taj to that because the cost of losing him in free agency, in terms of talent lost, was greater than the value of the contract. On the surface it looks like his contract doesnt eliminate your team from contending but it kind of actually does....
The new effectively hard cap is $72M, you can go over it but its just not sustainable. So you have to build a team with that max budget, and you need 3 top guys, if they are all max guys you have $51M tied up there and ~$20M for your remaining 9 players which isnt much considering you need to pay 2 starters as well. You probably need at least 2 max guys, because its so rare to contend with just 1, but lets say you find a 'bargain' like the Taj deal making $10M, now you have $44M tied up in your top 3 guys and ~$28M to spend on your remaining 9 players. But Taj as your 3rd best player isnt happening, unless like you siad he has absurd talent around him. So now even if you got 2 max guys that deserve the money, you are in NBA purgatory because you are going to have runs in the playoffs but really need some breaks to win the whole thing. Taj's ceiling is probably the 4th best player on a title team, but in this cap scenario there is no way you can pay your 4th best player $10M. That just sucks for the game, you sign one guy to a deal that doesnt add value for your team and even though the contract doesnt completely suck suddenly in your remaining 9 players you need to find some guys that are very significantly underpaid. Like Rondo was on his rookie deal in his 2nd - 4th year in the league. The system really isnt conducive to many teams truly contending, and it doesnt give intelligent fans much hope