Philadelphia 76ers: In defense of retaining Danny Green

When the Philadelphia 76ers traded for Danny Green, it wasn’t about Danny Green.

Sure, I imagined Daryl Morey wasn’t opposed to getting back a veteran sharpshooter fresh off back-to-back NBA Championship runs, but the deal was more so about getting off of Al Horford’s borderline-albatross contract than adding a fifth offensive starter, even if it meant having to give up a future first-rounder to get it done.

If the Oklahoma City Thunder didn’t want to expand the deal out to three teams, I imagine Morey would have been just as willing to make a similar move headlined by point guard Sam Hinkie‘s favorite point guard, Dennis Schroder, or really any other shooter on a short-term contract.

The goal was to get off of Horford’s deal and free up cap space to further fortify their roster for the foreseeable future, and to this point, the results have been a rousing success, especially after landing Seth Curry in free agency.

So, naturally, when the Sixers are looking to upgrade their roster with that missing piece needed to bolster their title chances, it would only be natural to use Green and his $15 million deal as a trade chip, right?

Whoa, whoa, whoa, not so fast, my friends.

Danny Green is an ideal fifth starter for the Philadelphia 76ers.

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For one reason or another, there’s a narrative that Danny Green is having a bad season; a narrative that isn’t particularly well supported by the numbers.

Through 21 games, Green is averaging more points, more assists, and more minutes per game than during his championship run with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2019-20, all the while averaging comparable blocks, steals, and rebounds. Though Green is shooting at a slightly lower clip from 3 as a member of the Philadelphia 76ers, 36.2 versus 36.7, he’s attempting 1.4 more shots from beyond the arc per game, so a slight regression is to be expected.

For all of the slack Green gets for his waning outside shot, the real regression to his game has been on the defensive side of the court.

Though the sample size is small, Green went from the 15th ranked defensive shooting guard in 2019-20 according to ESPN’s Real Plus-Minus with a +/- of 1.14 to the 71st ranked small forward defender with a +/- of -0.84.

Granted, Green is playing out of position as a 6-foot-5 small forward far more often than during his time with the Lakers, routinely tasked with defending small and even power forwards depending on the game, but it is mildly discouraging to see such a notable regression in the D half of his 3-and-D pedigree.

Still, even if Green isn’t what he once was during his tenure with the San Antonio Spurs, at 33, he can still switch effectively on opposing players 1-3 without putting the team in too much of a disadvantage one way or another, especially when paired up with some combination of Ben Simmons, Matisse Thybulle, and Seth Curry.

Could the Sixers conceivably find a player who can put up 8.9 points a game while hitting 36.2 percent of his 3s and play average wing defense? Surely so. But answer me this, which such player is attainable, a notable upgrade over Green as a fifth starter, and worth surrendering even more future assets to acquire?

While many point to hometown hero Kyle Lowry as the logical get for the Sixers at the deadline, he’s a one-position defender who is a year older than Green and on the last year of his contract. If the Sixers were to trade for the 34-year-old Villanova product, which is technically possible, they’d likely have to surrender another first-round pick for a player on an expiring contract that they’d surely extend to a big-money deal in the offseason to justify the purchase a la Tobias Harris in 2019.

I get that the Sixers are championship or bust, but how does surrendering that kind of treasure chest for a player like Lowry make the Sixers that much better than retaining Green? Adding a max contract point guard would force Simmons to play more at power forward, Harris to play small forward, and Doc Rivers to essentially reconstruct all of the sets that have been working from scratch, as you can’t trot out a starting lineup with either Curry or Lowry playing small forward – not with a straight face anyway.

No, if the Sixes are going to package Green in a massive trade acquisition, it has to be for a young, ascending player they feel is a fit on the team moving forward, as the whole point in acquiring him in the first place was to maintain cap flexibility moving forward. If, for example, the Sixers really like Terrence Ross – which they don’t, but just for argument’s sake, let’s just go with it – and believe he is a better fit with the team than any of the options available to them in free agency this summer, why not trade Green and a protected first to the procure his services? He’s under contract through 2023 and could conceivably slot right in as a long-term player for the Sixers the same way as Curry in the Josh Richardson trade.

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If the Sixers are instead interested in marginally improving their roster in the hopes of boosting their short-term odds without surrendering too much long-term capital, why not target players like P.J. Tucker, George Hill, or even Eric Bledsoe, all of whom could be had for second-round picks and/or young players on expiring contracts?

Bledsoe is objectively worse than Lowry, but is Bledsoe plus Green that much worse than Lowry solo? Again, I don’t think that is the play either. I’m all in on acquiring Tucker for his reported asking price of three second-round picks and hoping to land someone like Hill on the buyout market, but that, at least, is the idea.

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For better or worse, Danny Green is an ideal fifth starter on a championship-caliber team. He’s a pretty good shooter, (historically) a pretty good defender, and isn’t particularly concerned with how many shots he gets off in any given game. Factor in the veteran winger’s reputation as a fantastic locker room guy, and there’s a lot to like about having the “Green Ranger” on your team, even if he will occasionally take a laughable shot when his team needs it most. Could the Philadelphia 76ers ultimately find a better option at the trade deadline? Maybe so, but assuming the perfect deal doesn’t fall into their lap, why bother wasting shaking the team’s entire chemistry up for a chance at something better when you can further bolster the best team in the NBA with additional bench pieces to play alongside Green? That route certainly makes more sense to me.