Danny Green meets all three of the Cavaliers’ greatest needs

Danny Green meets the Cavaliers’ need for experience

This has been a common topic of discussion this season, but the Cleveland Cavaliers are not a team with much playoff experience. Donovan Mitchell has a number of elite playoff games, but he’s only been in 39 total games across five seasons. Jarrett Allen and Caris LeVert were in the same nine first-round games with the Brooklyn Nets. Ricky Rubio has played in 11, while Cedi Osman logged 14 (but just 62 total minutes) as an end-of-bench guy with the 2018 Cavs team. Kevin Love is the old hat with 63, although he’s also outside the rotation now.

Darius Garland, Evan Mobley, Isaac Okoro, Dean Wade and Lamar Stevens have a grand total of 0 playoff games to their names. That makes them by far the least experienced contending team this season, (depending on your opinion of the third-place Sacramento Kings as a contender). Part of gaining experience is playing the games, and this Cavaliers core will get their first taste this season.

The other part is having players on the team who have been there before, and now the Cavs have that in a major way in Danny Green. He has been to the playoffs 12 times in his career, making the NBA Finals four different times. His 165 career playoff games is more than all of the above players combined, and he started 159 of those games. He was a key piece on three different NBA champions with three different franchises.

Green knows what it’s like to play an opponent seven times in a row. He knows what it’s like to survive the crucible of NBA playoff defenses keying in on you. He has the wisdom of Gregg Popovich, of Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobili, Kawhi Leonard and LeBron James, that he can share with this group. It doesn’t make up for their lack of experience, but it is a way to help mitigate its impact. Green’s voice in the locker room will help this team grow up.