Gerald Green's first season in Miami hasn't quite gotten off to the start he hoped it would as he has only played in three of the teams nine games so far. Green missed four games due to what the Miami Heat called an illness, although we later found out he was in the hospital, and then missed two more games because of a suspension due to conduct detrimental to the team. Green is now ready to play for the Heat but there are questions as to what role he will play now, according to Manny Navarro of the Miami Herald.
Green was signed this offseason to be the Heat's sixth man and the main scorer on their second unit and through three games he was doing just that. Since he started missing time though, a lot of things have changed and the Heat have been playing really well. In the six games without Green Miami went 4-2 and have had players emerge off the bench which makes it interesting to see how Green will be used moving forward.
Justise Winslow has stepped up and become a guy that Erik Spoelstra has played in fourth quarters for his tremendous defense. Tyler Johnson has taken over as the backup point guard and also done a very good job and Josh McRoberts has come out of his early season struggles and started to play better as well. Green will likely have some sort of role but it may not be as big as they thought coming into the season.
"All we've told him right now is just bring that same approach great energy and attitude, work to get better, and get back into game shape and then we'll go from there, so he understands. The game will dictate how he'll be worked back in," said Spoelstra.
Green was averaging 21.7 minutes per game before the incident and while he says that his conditioning is not where it was at the beginning of the season he does feel he is ready to play. The Heat have been playing great defense this season and rank as the second best in the league behind the San Antonio Spurs in defensive rating so Green will need to play defense in order to play. Although it was a small sample size, Green was playing very good defense before he had to miss time so if he could keep that up and bring some long-range shooting to a team that has struggled in that area he will definitely have some sort of role.
