State of the Thunder: Should Jeff Green be coming off the bench in OKC?

January 30th, 2011 by Ricky Frech Leave a reply »
I want to begin this article by saying that you will not find a bigger Jeff Green fan than I am. In fact, outside of Nick Collison, he's my favorite player on the Thunder squad. However, he seems to be misplaced at the power forward position.

At 6"9, 235 pounds the man simply doesn't have the size to play against the likes of Pau Gasol, Tim Duncan, or even Dirk Nowitzki on the defensive side of the ball. I actually think his speed and skill set give him a unique mismatch on offense, but without a dominant low post presence to help him on defense he is often taken to school by his bigger opponents.

I would like to propose a simple solution to that: bring him off the bench. Effectively this would give them a starting five of Russell Westbrook, Thabo Sefolosha, Kevin Durant, Serge Ibaka/Nick Collison, and Nenad Kristic. Alternatively, they could regulate Nenad to back-up duty (which I see happening soon) and go with a front court of Ibaka and Collison.

If you've watched the Thunder play lately you'll notice that they often make large runs when Ibaka and Collison are playing together. This is because they are much better rebounders than the soft Kristic ...

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