Houston Rockets early season review: Gerald Green

The Houston Rockets have lacked bench production this year in a big way. One of the reasons for this is the regression of one of the proudest Houstonians on the team, unfortunately.

Gerald Green has been nothing but incredible for the community and morale of the team since he joined the Houston Rockets around halfway through the year last season. His production off the bench was incredible last season and he played with heart each and every day.

While the heart is always going to be there, his production has gone down quite a bit this season so far. Obviously, there’s still plenty of time to right the ship, but he has been a shell of the player he was in 2017-18.

Let’s look at how he’s fared so far this season:

The Positives

It’s tough to find positives from Green’s performances this season, unfortunately. He’s one of my favorite players the Rockets have ever had, but he just hasn’t played well enough to earn minutes.

Digging deep a bit, there are some good games that he’s had this season. Occasionally, the shot is falling and he looks like who he was last season. He has a game of 17 points and a game of 19 points this season. The sweet spot of him averaging around 10 points a night on solid shooting numbers is still very attainable once he returns from his ankle injury.

He still reps Houston well and is a great teammate on and off the court.

The Negatives

Like I’ve said quite a bit so far, Green’s production is very much down from a year ago. His average of 12.1 points a game on 37% shooting from deep was perfect for the Rockets off the bench last season.

This year, his scoring average is nearly in half. He is putting up just 6.8 points a night and is shooting a career-worst from 3 at 29.1%. The bricks have been pretty ugly for him. He normally takes bad shots (and makes them), but they are missing horribly so far.

His defense is not good at all, too. The effort, as always, is there but his instincts are bad. If he isn’t putting up points, it’s hard to justify giving Green minutes.

Stats

Here are his game stats so far this year:

Provided by Basketball-Reference.com: View Original Table

What’s next for Gerald?

For Green, he must improve if he doesn’t want to completely lose his minutes. The Rockets have recently signed the young Danuel House, another athletic guard that has shown some ability to shoot. Green could fall out of the rotation if he isn’t careful.

Houston has also shown interest in trading for another guard that can play on both ends of the court. If they do so, they’d likely take the minutes that Gerald has.

I believe in Greenlight, let’s hope he believes in himself.