THE GREEN MACHINE: The Subtle Emergence of Josh Green

[mvossman]

Not really a willingness issue.  Just ran out of time this morning.  It is a fairly complex answer.  Do they get it done next summer as an extension?  Do they wait until he’s RFA and let the restricted market set the number?  I think that is two different numbers for his “next contract”.  Let’s assume they are smart enough to do the extension…here are the off-guard comps from the last two summers.  Age and contract status at the time of the deal factor greatly here.  Extensions tend to come at a discount and UFA’s like THJ tend to do better than RFA’s all things being equal.  The salary below is the contact average:

2022

25.0mm. Simons
16.5mm. Dort
14.5mm. Tyus Jones
9.70mm. Monk

2021

18.7mm. THJ
18.2mm. Fournier
18.0mm. N. Powell
17.2mm. Trent Jr.
12.6mm. J. Hart
11.8mm. Graham
9.25mm. Caruso

FWIW, the average is 15.6.  We can quibble about where Green fits on that list or whether I skewed the comps too high (remove Simons and the average is 14.6).  The answer I would have given prior to looking up comps would have been $14mm this summer (average) and a risk of $20mm as the average if done in the summer of 2024 in free agency.  The MLE will be $11mm next summer.  North of that seems appropriate to me.

Some amount of projection is required here.  I have a high opinion of what I see happening by the end of this season.  We have no idea whether he continues to get minutes and continues to shoot efficiently or be as impactful.  When I put him on the list above, I see him North of Josh Hart and a little north of Tyus Jones (though I think Jones may be the best comp right this minute).  If you were a GM of another team and the salaries were equal, would you take Green over Dort?  Trent Jr.?  Norman Powell?  I think $15mm this summer is probably where I see it though I’d ask for a discount since I’m taking some risk of inking this a year early.  I do think he has a chance to get in the 20’s a season and a half from now…especially if a lot of teams have cap space in 2024.

I think you have to be careful with what we would take vs what the market pays.  There are a lot of guys I would take over Timmy, or Norman Powell that make a lot less.  The market pays for scoring.  It always has.  That is why Timmy is making more than Dorian even though most of us would rather have Dorian.  I would rather have Caruso than a lot of those guys.

In fact, if we are doing comps, I would say Caruso is probably the closest thing to Green.  Neither take a lot of shots, both are good defenders and both can pass the ball.  Caruso doesn't score much, but he is an elite defender who played next to Lebron in the playoffs and nocked down clutch shots during a championship run.  He got the MLE.  In fact, when you look at the high quality 3&D guys around the league, they don't generally get a lot more than the MLE.  The fact that Green can do more with a basketball than Bullock does not mean as much to the market if he is only scoring 10 points a game.

That Tyus contract looks like an outlier.  I assume that was in free agency and not an extension?  Green will either be an extension or restricted, so that also helps reduce the cost.  If I were to project Green for the rest of the season, I would guess that he continues to come from the bench, gets his minutes regularly into the upper 20s, continues to play well but his efficiency almost has to regress.  Probably looking at roughly 10 points a game with good defense.  If I had to take a stab, I would go with a little over MLE on an extension.  Maybe starting at 12.

Its important to point out that it is really early for this conversation and we are basing this on a very small sample.  Guys have played 20 game stretches where they have played much better than their baseline.  Guys have also had years where they have huge improvement throughout the year.  Hard to know where Green falls in that spectrum right now and his playoff performance could be a big part of the equation.