The Miami Heat Should Not Start Gerald Green Over Luol Deng

Gerald Green is one of the Miami Heat’s most explosive reserves, and that’s how it should stay.

After Gerald Green’s breakout performance in which he replaced Luol Deng in the starting lineup, many people are wondering if Green should get the start over Deng for good.

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Green, who scored 25 points in place of the injured Deng, is a known 3-point shooter and played some hard nosed defense on New York Knicks star Carmelo Anthony.

Green mentioned after the game that his top priority is defense.

The offense will always come for Green. He’s a streaky shooter, but also Miami’s best perimeter threat. He can heat up at microwave speed and do wonders for Miami’s spacing.

If he can become a more complete two-way player, Green will be one of the NBA’s best reserves. And that’s precisely what he should be. Starting Green over Deng, as tempting as it may be, could add more confusion to an already jumbled starting unit.

Miami’s starting unit isn’t bad (it has a minus-3.3 net rating this season, per NBA.com, which isn’t great but not terrible, either), but the chemistry certainly isn’t there. Deciding who should bring the ball up, who should shoot, which guard gets to go left, are all things that need ironing out.

Deng, though the least threatening player in the starting five, is the piece keeper. Wade and Dragic need to act with the ball. Chris Bosh needs to get his shots early to be most effective and give the Heat some breathing room on offense, and Hassan Whiteside demands ball touches due to his sheer dominance and two-man game with Wade.

Deng, on the other hand, doesn’t need the ball. He’s a glue guy who can time cuts when he needs to and grab offensive rebounds (or at least try to). On defense, he’s more consistent than Green and removes one more question from Erik Spoelstra’s equation.

For a starting five that already requires so much ball sharing, adding Green to the mix is only going to make things more difficult. Why force those five to take smaller pieces of the pie when Green can come in later and eat all the pie he wants?

Is it impossible to start Green? No. But in order to get the most out of Green–allowing him to get his shots when he’s with the second team–and Deng–best along with other starters–Spoelstra needs to maintain the starting five, and substitute Green for Deng later in the game as needed.