Within the past decade, “Father Time” has caught up with a few former memebers of the Philadelphia 76ers. Players like Elton Brand, Kwame Brown, Jason Richardson, Wilson Chandler, Amir Johnson, and Mike Scott have all flamed out with the Sixers at the tail end of their careers.
Now it appears a current 76ers player is about to trend in the same direction. It is veteran wing Danny Green who is the oldest player on the roster at 34 years old that looks like he’s lost a step. If things don’t change soon, signing Green to a two-year $20 million deal will look like a bad signing.
The Sixers should be concerned that Green is aging poorly.
If one just looks at the box score, this article would feel foolish. This season, Green is averaging 7.5 points and 1.4 steals (career-high) while shooting 41.8 percent from the 3-point line. While those numbers are good there’s some numbers that should cause some concern.
He’s only averaging about 23.9 minutes per game, which is the lowest since his third season. He’s also averaging 2.1 fouls which are tied for his career-high in that category. It even gets more concerning in his advanced statics. His Defensive Rating Per 100 Possessions is at a career-worst 110. His Defensive Box Plus/Minus score is at second-lowest mark of his career plus-0.2.
It’s more than just the numbers for Green. He’s been getting beat off the dribble more this season and there have been several games where head coach Doc Rivers has elected to keep Green on bench in favor of Furkan Korkmaz to close out a game.
However, the most concerning aspect for Green this season is his injury issues. For pretty much all of his career, Green has been relatively healthy. However, this season he’s already gone down with injury twice this year. He’s missed 3 games thus far and is currently out with another injury so that number will continue to grow.
It’s early in the season so Green has a chance to prove this article wrong and hopefully he does, but as of now this trend isn’t good for him nor the Philadelphia 76ers.