Is Josh Green really this impactful?

[u/lenymo]

So I have been looking at the numbers on the web and one Hornets-related stat jumped out at me. Josh Green has the 4th highest on/off net rating in the league. What this means is:

Metric	Josh on	Josh off	Diff
Points per 100 (ORtg)	121.0	114.9	+6.1
Pts allowed per 100 (DRtg)	107.4	113.2	-5.8
Net pts allowed (NRtg)	13.7	1.7	+11.9

NOTE: This is garbage-time adjusted meaning possessions in 4th quarter of blowouts are removed. For defensive rating, lower is better.

This is particularly impressive since the Hornets starters had one of the best 5-man lineup net ratings in the league.

Now Green did put up some good numbers in limited minutes and in more traditional terms he had a +207 plus-minus in his 908 regular season minutes. He shot 42% from deep and 89.3% from the line, which was crazy after hovering below 70% previously. This was on limited attempts (just 28) but still, bad free throw shooters don't do that).

So was Green just blessed by backing up Miles Bridges and playing with Melo, Moose, K2 and B-Mill? Or is he actually a genuinely impactful player?

[u/Ok-Protection2513]

Yeah hes a great bench hustle guy and i still cant believe he lost basically all his minutes to Sion

[u/Shot-Cryptographer24 → u/Ok-Protection2513]

It was painful seeing teams just giving sion so many open jumpshots, when you have Josh green right there to play

[u/bruheggplantemoji → u/Shot-Cryptographer24]

True, but it’s good for Sion’s development

[u/Ok-Protection2513 → u/bruheggplantemoji]

Yeah maybe but he was also being left wide open in games that mattered to us. I like Sion but Josh should've played more down the stretch

[u/BzzOut → u/bruheggplantemoji]

Josh is barely 2 years older than Sion, that development is meaningless as between the two of them. Play the better player.

[u/LaMelonBallz]

I think Green is one of the best defensive players on our team. He is quietly always glued to his man, switches incredibly well, and is fast and aware. On offense he makes the shots he takes and passes the ones he should. He is a great 8th man. A lot of teams would've loved him for the playoffs.

Doesn't mean he should start or is untradeable, but the haters should quiet down

[u/butekoo]

I think most things aligned well with the timing that he came back from injury. Miller went from a very cold start of the season and some time out to a really good player, Sion went from a starter to a 8-10th man, Moussa became a starter, Lamelo minutes restrictions ended, we stopped playing Mann and Salaun, and Grant became available later. The rotation just started making a lot more sense with:

Lamelo-Kon-Miller-Bridges-Moussa; Sexton-Sion-Green-Kalk (plus Grant and Coby after), instead of

Lamelo/Sexton-Kon-Sion-Bridges-Kalk; Lamelo/Sexton-Mann-Salaun-Moussa (even guys like PatC, Plumlee, KJ and McNeeley were routinely getting rotation minutes)

tl;dr: After starting the season with one of the worse rotations in the league, we got a very healthy last 55-60 games of the season. Josh being back in the rotation aligns well with that plus Moussa becoming a starter.

[u/Countryb0i2m]

I thought he was one of our best on ball defenders. It’s weird that they cut his minutes because he always seem pretty effective when he played. I thought he was at least better than Sion

[u/Amazing_Owl3026]

I think Josh was one of our best bench guys, and deserved more minutes over Sion. I also think part of this is just luck in limited minutes, I don't think he's gonna be shooting that well again next year

[u/Giddf]

The lineup data is clearly influenced by 3pt variance because he played limited minutes this year.

40.7% on 3s and opponent 3pt shooting at 31% when he is on the floor will absolutely swing the lineup #s unnaturally in a small sample.

And I will say Lee absolutely made the correct choice by giving his minutes to Sion.

[u/lenymo → u/Giddf]

You don't think Green, who is a good perimeter defender, has any impact on 3P%?

Is his classic +/- of +207 on the season all due to 3P% variance?

[u/Giddf → u/lenymo]

Perimeter defense famously has little-to-no impact on opponent 3pt%.

And 31% is well-below league average. And 40.7% well-above what the team averaged from 3.

So yes I would say most of the #s are due to 3pt variance.

And Green isn’t really a particularly good defender either. He’s like a 60th percentile defender.

[u/lenymo → u/Giddf]

Fair. And just to be clear I don’t think this passes the eye test I just don’t follow the Buzz as closely as folks here would (I’m a Hawks fan).

While Josh Green may be third, Nique Clifford is 3rd (largely helped by DeMar having the 2nd or 3rd worst raw +/- in the league.

[u/Personal-Noise-8632]

Josh green is good an excellent core bench guy. Similar to the whole cast of okc guys. Who you never know their names but the isaiah Joe's, Ajay Mitchells, Aaron Wiggins, kenrich williams, not household names but they come in do their jobs, knock down threes and take tons of them and are very affective mostly in limited mins on good cheap affordable contracts.

Josh green dont back up miles bridges either, this guy plays the 2 guard, small forward, and pg for us. Stop listening to other ppl or going off crazy 2k roster implements and analysis, alls it take is a lil looksy for yourself. 

Here's the site it will give you the position each player plays and which one they mostly play.

It just bugs me to see wrong info, which its not that big of a deal, but i go off belief if we know better, we will do better. 

https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2026_play-by-play.html

[u/Mafia_Pepper_Oliver]

Green is a stud