It’s not easy being Jeff Green
By Bryan Harvey
Jeff Green was at his most Jeff Green on Nov. 9. His Cleveland Cavaliers were playing the Houston Rockets. He poured in 27 points, shooting 11-for-15 from the field. At times, he looked like a player on the level of LeBron James or James Harden, like he might be a name worth mentioning on ballots for All-Star games, MVP awards, and the Hall of Fame. Jeff Green can do this. Jeff Green has always done this. And he will surely do it again. Jeff Green is never done being Jeff Green, and this is the most infuriating attribute about Jeff Green.
His name rolls off the tongue so easily, like a superhero’s secret identity, that you fully expect the name to explode into some alter ego who can dominate the NBA landscape.
He has always gleamed at onlookers like an Abraham Lincoln silhouette in midst of a busy sidewalk. His 6-foot-9 frame and the silky manner in which he slinks through traffic invites one to imagine him as a versatile wing player who can travel effortlessly between the perimeter and the land of giants. In a world without positions, he looks the part. He is just slim enough to invite the word skilled into every conversation and just tall enough to make his greatness appear as only a matter of time.
In 2007, the Boston Celtics snatched him up with the fifth pick and then traded him to the Seattle Super Sonics for Ray Allen and he has been trading hands ever since, from Oklahoma City to Boston, from Boston to Memphis, from Memphis to Los Angeles, from Los Angeles to Orlando, from Orlando to Cleveland. There isn’t a city in the NBA where Green isn’t the currency. And, given the benefit of the doubt, maybe he’s running some long con. And yet, all tangible things considered, he’s not worth the investment to find out.
This past July he signed a one-year contract with the Cavaliers. They are paying him just over two million dollars, the lowest mark of his 13-year career. He is 31-years-old. His scoring numbers have been in steady decline since he averaged 17.6 points per game as a 28-year-old in Boston (for half a season before being traded to Memphis). He is currently averaging less minutes per game than at any other moment in his career. But nights like the one he had against Houston suggest the minutes and salary could eventually both tick upward, that Jeff Green’s ability to stay in the game should never be underestimated.
As the Cleveland Cavaliers struggle to find the chemistry, rotations, and wherewithal to win consistently this season, the occasional flash in the pan game from Jeff Green will start to feel valuable. LeBron James will start to look for him in dribble-drive situations and cutting to the basket. Some Cleveland fans will fall in love with the idea of Jeff Green and start to lament his lack of minutes or suggest he’s simply not trusted enough by the coaching staff. That if there were simply more Jeff Green, then there would be more Jeff Green. But none of this will change who Jeff Green is and what he brings to an NBA team.
He will continue to be Jeff Green, the player who shoots 11-for-15 on one amazing night and then amazingly doesn’t score more than ten points in 11 of the next 15 games. He will disappear. You know he will. And, at that point in time, you will know you’re dealing with the real Jeff Green, that he has not disappointed you, but met some warped expectation that has deteriorated with each passing season.
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He is the ultimate glass half-full or half-empty player. He is a referendum on potential and hope without limits. But, if you stare long enough at the glass, you also start to see your own reflection, and you start to fume at the fact someone could be so much better than you at masking his faults, at preventing the world from seeing who he really is.
He’s never been perfect, but sometimes he can make you forget how normal that is, and even that is infuriating.