BasketballandFeelings. BasketballandFeelings. BasketballandFeelings. Loves you.
Over the years, Jeff Green has bounced around the NBA a lot. It’s not being rude to say he has had a hard time finding a home in the NBA. I could almost hear the younger version of myself judging him as a player who sucked, as one one of those whack NBA guys whose worn every NBA jersey, and put up mediocre statistics everywhere he’s been. Not a star. But now I can’t help but see it different. Because even though Jeff Green’s journeyman path through the NBA has been un-sexy, he’s been able to keep a job in the league for 15 seasons, playing for eleven teams, and collecting a lot of paychecks.
Jeff Green is the opposite of a “star” and there’s actually something cool about that.
When I was younger all I wanted to do was be the center of attention. The person in the room that everyone talked about, so somebody like Jeff Green would’ve been an enigma to my seventeen year old self. I can still clearly remember thinking at seventeen, and then again at nineteen, that these were by far the happiest years of my life. These were years where everything and anything seemed possible. Where I could be a mixture of David Bowie and Johnny Depp when I grew up. The greatest pop star actor the world had ever seen.
I also remember thinking that I couldn’t imagine a world where Johnny Depp wasn’t cool. That turned out different, but so did my imminent destiny. Imminent, that’s a good word for it, that’s how much I believed in my star power. Born special, one day I would just be a star. The funniest part of it all is that how I became a star was at best allusive, and at worst irrelevant. But let’s get back to Jeff Green before I get all gushy and philosophical on you.
I’m one of those people who has never liked the idea of working somewhere long term. Jeff Green, by choice or not, is that. He’s an NBA bunny, hopping around from job to job, team to team in his case.
By all accounts he’s a stud of a teammate too. Players love balling with him, coaches love coaching him, he’s great at what he does — not the best who ever lived — not a star, or superstar — but solid — and most importantly a professional. Every team he works for hires him for that skillset of professionalism. He’s one of those locker room guys who you can count on in a pinch when the young guy starts to get over his head and overwhelmed by a big moment, a coach in a jersey.
He’s a veteran, someone who the big name stars on your team know isn’t going to fuck up when the defense gets tight.
So why does he keep losing his job?
If he’s so good, why can’t he just sign a long term contract — the ultimate NBA status symbol?
Signing a long term contract actually has more to do with team structure and the politics of team building in the NBA than it does with a player’s skill. The fact that Jeff Green can survive in the NBA for 15 seasons on 1-2 year deals, is more than enough evidence of his talent and skill. In a professional ecosystem as cutthroat as the NBA, someone who has managed to do what Jeff Green has, he came into the league in 2007, the year AMC’s Mad Men premiered, deserves all of our praise, all of the most expensive flowers we can throw at him.
I’m not saying he’s Lebron, but I am saying that he is the Lebron of NBA independent contractors, so on some level that makes him just as “successful” as Lebron? People love to play the comparison game, so to be clear, I’m not comparing the talent of Jeff Green to Lebron James, there is no comparison. What I am saying is that Jeff Green has figured out how to survive in an environment to the absolute maximum of his abilities. In Jeff Green’s case, the career structure happens to be that of a journeyman independent contractor, a guy who has had homes in eleven different cities over his 15 season NBA career.
That may not be your idea of a good time, but that’s what he had to do to get to the mountaintop. To win a championship, as Jeff Green did this past year, along with his journeyman Denver Nuggets teammates Deandre Jordan, Reggie Jackson, and Ish Smith, Jeff Green had to play where he could, season after season he had to survive. And he did. And now he’s a motherfucking champion.
Lastly, thanks to some of the NBA writers and podcasters who inspired me this week, including @Trevor_Lane @WindhorstESPN @AustinRivers25 @KevinOConnorNBA @ChrisVernonShow & @BigWos