Retiring Danny Green will always be fondly remembered for role on champion Raptors

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A third key member of the NBA title-winning Toronto Raptors team has retired.

Danny Green, the starting shooting guard on that memorable team, announced on his YouTube channel Thursday that “I’m officially moving on from the game of basketball and the NBA. It’s been a great run. I’m very proud to be able to walk away from the game. I’m at peace with it. I wasn’t at first, but I think it’s one of those things — once I turned 37, the body started reacting a little differently,” Green said.

“My body was letting me know. I was getting little calf strains here and there,” Green said. “But also, when you get older, teams aren’t calling as much. Unfortunately, my services weren’t as sought-after as they were when I was younger. It’s been a hell of a ride.”

Green was an often under-looked part of the blockbuster trade with the San Antonio Spurs that ended up being the best in Raptors history. The team didn’t just get superstar and eventual NBA Finals MVP Kawhi Leonard from the Spurs in exchange for DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl and a first round pick, it also got Green to replace DeRozan at shooting guard. While some overall offence was sacrificed, Green was a massive upgrade defensively and provided elite three-point shooting at the position. Green nailed 45.5% of his three-point attempts in his lone season in Toronto and nailed 198 treys in all, the sixth-most in one year in team history. Only two Raptors have ever shot a better percentage in a year than Green did in 2018-19. His strong defence and high basketball IQ also complemented the many other quality two-way players on the roster.

Green joins starting centre Marc Gasol and sixth man Serge Ibaka as players from that team who are now retired.

He strongly considered returning to the Raptors as a free agent, but plans changed when Leonard chose to go home and join the Los Angeles Clippers. Green signed with the Los Angeles Lakers and ended up winning a second straight championship. He had earlier won with the Spurs and is one of only four players (former teammate turned Finals foe LeBron James, ex-Raptor John Salley and Robert Parish) to win titles with three different teams.

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Green received a loud ovation when he finally received his Raptors championship ring three years after leaving the team.

Green was a second round pick by the Cavaliers, but was cut by the team before resurfacing with the Spurs. With Manu Ginobili excelling as the league’s best sixth man, Green became the choice to start for a pair of Spurs teams that reached the NBA Finals. But after eight seasons and reaching age 30, Green became expendable and a contractual necessity to make the Leonard deal work. San Antonio’s loss became Toronto’s gain, as Green’s on-court play and off-court leadership were perfect fits in Toronto.

Green also blocked 0.8 shots per game, just behind the 0.9 Michael Jordan and Dwyane Wade averaged, which are the most by any shooting guards in NBA history. By comparison Michael Cooper, who will be enshrined in the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend and is considered one of the best defenders of the 1980s, averaged 0.6 blocks per game.

Green talked about his knack for blocking shots to Postmedia back in 2019.

“I had to play defence, my (high school) coach wouldn’t allow it otherwise. That was just part … of me playing defence and stopping a guy. You really can’t teach timing that well, I think it’s just something I picked up watching my dad and my uncles play,” Green told Postmedia

“My uncle was pretty good at shot-blocking and I thought it was pretty cool that he was able to like catch the ball or block it off the backboard or catch it on the backboard so I guess it was something when I was younger I just wanted to do, try to work on my timing, catching guys’ rhythms and figure out when they’re going up or where the ball is going to be,” Green said.

Green will now transition to media work, where he’s already shown he’s a natural. At the all-star game in Charlotte in 2019 he was part of TNT’s Rising Stars Game broadcast and his Inside the Green Room podcast was a trend-setting podcast that took listeners inside the life of an NBA player. At that all-star weekend Green told Postmedia he was excited for the opportunity to hone his media skills.

“I’m looking forward to it, having fun,” Green said. “It’s a long game, a lot to talk about. Hopefully I don’t embarrass myself. Hopefully I have some good things to say and talk about and people like it. Or I have some good jokes or stories to tell, but I’m looking forward to getting some reps up and doing hopefully decently.”

Green did well and it was always a given that once he hung up his sneakers he’d easily find work as a broadcaster.

LONG TIME COMING

Friday will mark 224 days since Scottie Barnes has played in a game. The long absence of the new Toronto Raptors franchise player is finally going to end though, with Barnes slated to play in the preseason game at Washington.

The Raptors won the first game Barnes missed last March, but then embarked on one of the darkest periods in franchise history. A 41-point home loss to the New Orleans Pelicans only foreshadowed just how bad things would get the rest of the way. In all, the Raptors would drop 15 in a row, the second-worst run in franchise history.

Injuries have already started to pile up for this year’s edition of the Raptors and starting point guard Immanuel Quickley (thumb) won’t be ready for Friday’s rematch with the Wizards. Bruce Brown, Ja’Kobe Walter and RJ Barrett also remain sidelined. Quickley has still not been cleared for contact.

The short-handed Raptors easily dispatched the woeful Wizards in the pre-season opener Sunday, with Barrett scoring 17 first half points before being forced to leave with a shoulder injury.

@WolstatSun