Overview
The Phoenix Suns 2013-14 season had a certain magical quality to it. A team projected for less than 20 wins finished with 48 and consistently competed (and often beat) the best the West had to offer.
Goran Dragic transformed from a career backup to an all-NBA performer and lifted the play of a cast of anonymous role players around him.
One of the guys on the lower end of the anonymity totem pole was Gerald Green. A former top-20 pick and high school sensation who flunked out of chances with six other teams, Green improbably broke out in Phoenix.
The walking heat check averaged nearly 16 points a game while shooting 40 percent from beyond the arc and prematurely ended dozens of lives with aerial antics this.
Whatever fire fueled last season’s miraculous run was all but extinguished by this season’s trade deadline and once again, Green’s play was a microcosm of the team’s as a whole.
Here’s where he fell short.
Next: Weaknesses
Weaknesses
Green’s biggest weakness this season — and throughout his career — was his inability/refusal to pass the basketball.
Green’s anemic 8.9 assist ratio ranked in the bottom 10 among shooting guards, accurately indicating that Green’s eyes haven’t left the rim since he landed in Phoenix.
Yet Green’s ratio wasn’t any worse than last season; where Green truly fell off was his ability to put the ball into the basket.
Green’s field goal percentage dropped from 45 percent to 42 percent, but what really killed him were his failures from beyond the arc where Green plummeted to 35 percent.
That drop in efficiency led to his offensive win shares falling off the map, from 4.2 to 0.8.
Green’s defense has never been a strength and it didn’t get any better this season with his defensive win shares on that end going from 1.9 to 0.9.
“I think it could’ve got better. That’s an area that I’m going to improve on in the summertime, though,” Green said about his defense.
Head coach Jeff Hornacek summed up Green’s season.
“He never really seemed to get it going and then it comes to the point where, if you’re not scoring and if your defense isn’t picking up, it’s hard to stay in the game,” Hornacek told the Arizona Republic’s Paul Coro.
Next: Strengths
Strengths
Green wasn’t nearly as efficient as he was last season, but that doesn’t mean he couldn’t get hot in a hurry.
Green had 12 games in which he scored at least 20 points, though nearly half of them came in the first month of the season.
He maintained the ability to change the course of multiple games with either a mind-bending dunk or a barrage from beyond the arc.
Out of everyone who came off the bench for at least 60 games, Green was fourth in made three-pointers.
Green only had dunks on the season, but the high flyer delivered on all of them.
Phoenix went on to finish the game on a 33-13 run. While it’s grossly manipulative to cite that dunk as the sole reason for the comeback, it definitely didn’t hurt the cause.
His electricity wasn’t confined to US Airways either. In fact, he was actually better across the board on the road.
The generous interpretation of that being, he stepped up when his team needed him most. Since we’re on strengths, let’s go with that!
Next: Lowlights
Lowlights
Everything after the All-Star break. Green scored two fewer points a game and saw the rest of his stats tail off, other than shooting percentage.
Perhaps most significant was the drop off in playing time. Green recorded his first DNP-CD of his Suns career (breaking a streak of 129 consecutive appearances for the franchise) and proceeded to have seven more by the end of the season.
Green’s minutes dropped down to 17 a game after averaging a lick under 21 before the break and 28 a game in 2013-2014.
With the team shifting towards a semi-rebuild, Green, a guy who rarely makes his teammates better and having a skillset that overlaps with the newly prioritized Archie Goodwin and T.J. Warren, nearly fell out of the rotation.
Green responded by saying this.
“In the beginning, I thought I was playing better than last year but I guess other people thought otherwise. It hasn’t been the same (since the Chicago game). I ain’t gonna lie. It’s been frustrating because I know I can help win,” Green told Coro.
It’s worth pointing out that Green remained nothing short of a great teammate despite the benching and was a vocal supporter from the sidelines.
Still, the fact that Green even took a veiled shot at Hornacek gives you an idea of just how things had devolved from the previous season.
Next: Highlights
Highlights
Gerald Green’s game is made for a section titled “highlights” and even a down year produced its fair share.
We got to start out with one of the best plays of the NBA season.
That’s some “Like Mike” s**t.
Green’s not someone often lauded for his basketball IQ, but that play was full of it. He’s one of maybe five guys in the entire league who could pick up their dribble beyond the elbow, facing away from the hoop and think, “I can get a dunk right here.”
The look of pure awe on Nikola Vucevic‘s face when Green goes flying past him is just great.
Also the fact that the play fooled one of the league’s best perimeter defenders in Victor Oladipo is the cherry on top of the self alley-oop sundae.
Here’s a cool animation of the play.
Love these animations @SportsCenter is doing. Gerald Green's selfie-oop, coined by @JonBloom, was No. 3. pic.twitter.com/oCpRtdfZ1z
— Espo (@Espo) April 15, 2015
Green’s best stretch of play came over his last five healthy games when he averaged 21.6 points a game in just over 25 minutes. His best game came against the Dallas Mavericks when he dropped 30 points on six three-pointers and just generally made Monta Ellis want to be anywhere else.
Green’s possible coda as a Sun was also full of highlights.
Of course, Gerald Green pulled for a 3 on a fastbreak. It's a 22-6 Suns run and they're still down 14. #SunsVsClippers
— Paul Coro (@paulcoro) April 15, 2015
Green, who might just be the master of ill-fated one man comebacks, scored eight of the Suns’ final 21 points, and had what was left of the crowd chanting his name, knowing it may have been his final one in orange.
Next: Final Grade
Grade: C-
This season was a step back for Green in every sense of the word. We’ve already covered what happened statistically, but he just didn’t look like he enjoyed the game quite as much this year.
Maybe it was the semi-toxic locker room, but Green seemed like a one-man band more than ever before.
The sporadic minutes definitely couldn’t help for a guy whose success is entirely predicated on getting in rhythm and the losses of Channing Frye and Goran Dragic made things harder on everyone.
Still, Green did not have a good season, and the fact that his grade is even that high is reflective of the joy he brought to everyone who watched him play, more than his quality of play.
I already went into detail on Green potentially coming back this offseason, but suffice to say it’s not looking great, though Green was typically optomistic when asked about it at the end of the season.
Regardless of if Green gets to fufill his stated intention of retiring a Sun, he’s one of those rare role players fans are going to foundly remember 30 years from now with an effortless smile on their faces.
And that’s an A+ legacy.
More 2014-15 Phoenix Suns Player Grades:
Jerel McNeal
Danny Granger
Brandan Wright
Earl Barron
Marcus Thornton
T.J. Warren
Archie Goodwin
Alex Len
Marcus Morris
Next: Phoenix Suns: 10 Worst Moments Of 2014-15