Where Jeff Green is good

Last night against Charlotte, Jeff Green went 9-14 from the floor and 5-7 from 3. He finished with 25 points and it was one of those nights where Uncle Jeff can show off how good he can be offensively.

In his notes, Darnell Mayberry talked about how it was a one-or-the-other type performance from Green, with Uncle Jeff either chucking a 3 or driving to the rim. All the in-between, mid-range stuff didn’t work. And Mayberry wondered what Green’s career looked like from mid-range. So I looked it up.

It’s pretty obvious that on long 2s, Uncle Jeff isn’t good. A long 2-pointer is the worst shot in basketball, but it doesn’t mean it’s always a bad one. Sometimes you’re open. But for Green, a player like kind of likes to hover around the 3-point line, settling for that long 2 instead of maybe driving or going into the post, isn’t the smartest thing.

For instance, let’s look at how the Thunder used Green last season via Synergy Sports:

Green had 158 plays in transition meaning he runs the floor well, but in terms of posting him, running him off screens or having him cut, OKC does little of that. Clearly it’s about spotting up and clearing out for Green. And when you’re a good shooter, those things are great. When you’re hitting 5-7 from 3, it’s beautiful. But Green hasn’t proven that kind of consistency from deep and he’s shown he’s a really good finisher at the rim.

In post-ups for example, Green scores almost 45 percent of the time. In spot-ups, he drops to 37 percent. In isolation, it’s 40 percent. And in terms of how Green’s getting those 3-point attempts, 71.6 of them are on spot-ups (he shoots 33.1 percent on spot-up 3s). Only five percent came off screens, but Green hit 52 percent from deep on those. Kind of a small sample size there to draw a ton of conclusions, but interesting nonetheless.

Jeff Green just isn’t a mid-range player. Some might say he’s not really a 3-point threat, but one season of nearly 40 percent says he at least deserves a little more time out there. But it’s all in how he’s getting his looks. As he showed last night against a good defensive team, when called upon, Green can score the ball.

A lot of times he fades into the background offensively because he can. With Russell Westbrook and Kevin Durant handling most of the duties, Green looks to sort of hover and wait for spots to score. Which is absolutely fine with me, as long as he cranks it up in other areas and stays consistent with what he’s good at.