Don’t ever write sketchy stuff about Jeff Green.
He will destroy you.
Responding to a report from Comcast Sports New England that used quotes and anonymous to sources to talk about Green’s unhappiness and his trade value, the Celtics forward went off.
Chris Forsberg of ESPN Boston has the juicy deets:
Boston Celtics forward Jeff Green stressed after Sunday’s loss to the Portland Trail Blazers that any frustration he is experiencing is merely a factor of Boston’s early-season struggles and does not represent unhappiness with the organization.
Green said he received a text directing him to an undisclosed article that suggested he desired to be traded from Boston. Unprompted, Green addressed the story — one that most of the assembled media was unaware of — after Sunday’s game.
“Before you start, I just want to clear the air about some B.S. rumor that came out,” Green said. “I don’t know if the person who made this article is in this [group of reporters], but the rumor about me wanting to get traded is definitely false. I said that I was frustrated with losing, not frustrated with the team. So if the words didn’t come from my mouth, I’d appreciate if you do not write a dumb— article like that.”
During an on-camera interview following Friday’s loss in Memphis, Green told CSNNE that his frustrations with losing were at an “all-time high” and he added, “I’m tired of losing.” The station’s website later reported, citing a league executive, that Green’s value could be high this offseason when he has potential to opt out of his deal and become a free agent.
Green’s frustrations, however, seemed to stem from another site that combined the two reports and took his quotes out of context, suggesting his frustrations left him yearning for a trade out of Boston.
Truth told, Green probably was, in fact, upset at another website that framed the report differently. At the very least, he shouldn’t have been upset with CSNNE. The writing in that story was clear. It was just entertaining the idea of Green’s unhappiness, not actually reporting his desire to leave.
Not even his quotes seem to come out of context. The site even made it a point to note that Green’s red-flag comments came after a loss. Speculation doesn’t get any clearer, which means that Green realistically could have read something else—perhaps an aggregation-centric site, like this, contorting the context behind his comments and the initial story itself.
There’s also a chance he was reacting to faulty information. Maybe he didn’t even read the story. Maybe he was responding to someone who told him about it, and maybe that someone took it out of context. This could be like a simplified game of telephone, where the original message posits one thing and the final one doesn’t even resemble it upon being funneled through multiple channels and sources.
Should be noted again that article Jeff Green claimed misquoted him as wanting to be traded, never said he said he wanted to be traded.
— Scott Souza (@Scott_Souza) November 24, 2014
Whatever the case, report on Green at your own risk. If you’re even the slightest bit wrong or he finds something to disagree with you about, and then you two are, for some unknown reason, left alone in a room teeming with sharp objects, it’s off with your head.
Dan Favale is a firm believer in the three-pointer as well as the notion that defense doesn’t always win championships. His musings can be found at Bleacherreport.com in addition to TheHoopDoctors.com.
