McD Ball: A Conspiracist's take on Gerald Green's Reduced Role

Listen. I get it. No one likes seeing Gerald Green sit on the bench.  I'm not too gung ho on forced transition 3s, but it's still frustrating to see a guy that's been a large part of the Phoenix Suns success over the last year and a half be relegated to DNPs and spot minutes.  Green can be polarizing, but his athleticism and three point shooting have been an overall boon for the team.  That's undeniable.

But maybe this is for the greater good.

Maybe Ryan McDonough, our lord and savior, is up to something.  Hear me out.

Try not to look at this situation from a purely on-court stance.  Let's look at it from a more managerial standpoint.

McDonough, God bless, pulled a fast one on the league last season by turning a lottery team into a playoff contender, and exactly NO ONE saw it coming.  We know he knows what he's doing, even when we don't always know exactly what he's doing.  He's earned that trust.  As far as I'm concerned, he's a freaking like, general manager servant for turning that disaster of a Suns squad he inherited in 2013 into anything halfway decent, let alone a 48 win team.  He's proven time after time that he sees things us simpletons simply cannot see at first glance.  I mean, for God's sake, we actually questioned his drafting of Alex Len over Nerlens Noel.  Or how about when we got Gerald Green, Miles Plumlee, and a draft pick for the artist formerly known as Luis Scola?? That wasn't even a lopsided deal at the time.  McDonough just has a keen eye, and as a result, his deals end up looking like straight up highway robbery six months later.

Now that we've established McDonough the Redeemer as a genius and someone who understands basketball better than the rest of us, let's get a little whacky.  I'm going to propose that we've got a little Moneyball situation on our hands here.

Maybe our Messiah had a vision when he signed Isaiah Thomas this summer.  What if he signed Isaiah Thomas not as an insurance policy in the event of an Eric Bledsoe departure, as most have hypothesized, but as an actual third point guard, with the full intent of playing all three together on a frequent basis? Maybe he saw something in I.T.'s game that he KNEW would compliment the Slash Bros pairing.  Who knows, maybe he saw some crazy little unknown Spanish team run an unconventional three point guard system that worked, and said, "The hell with convention! Why couldn't this work for us?"  Maybe he's even got Jonah Hill working for him as an assistant, and he's got some whacky algorithm for determining avant-garde lineups (But let's be real, McDonough is totally the nerdy Peter Brand in this situation).

McDonough was questioned for the pairing of two point guards prior to the 2013-2014 season, but by the end of the season he was quietly saying "Boo ya, son" to himself after a 48-34 season.  I think we're in the midst of another McDonough boo-ya-season.  But there's only one problem.  The Dragic-Bledsoe-Thomas pairing has only logged 156 minutes so far.

Maybe McDonough has had a hard time convincing Jeff Hornacek to buy into his three guard vision. Sticking with the Moneyball analogy, McDonough (Billy Bean) wants Hornacek (Art Howe) to play unconventional with Thomas (Scott Hatteburg) over Green (Carlos Peña). Still with me?

But Hornacek's like "Nah, that'll never work, but I'll try it here and there to get Ryan off my back." Except guess what, just as the Great McDonough prognosticated, the three guard lineup works. But it's still only being used sparingly.  Maybe McDonough wants to see more of the lineup and is putting pressure on Hornacek, hence the controversial benching of Gerald Green.

You have to admit, it seems like there's something going on behind the scenes here.  Green had played in every single game until not appearing against Chicago last week.  A guy goes from playing 20 minutes per game to just under 6 minutes a game over the last three games (including the DNP)? Granted, Green can take some infuriating shots and make some major bonehead plays, but Hornacek seems to generally like him and gives him a decent amount of offensive freedom.  Even though the Four-Fingered Assassin hasn't been all that assassiny lately, he's still a good spark off the bench.  So why the sudden cold shoulder?

The only possible explanation is that McDonough is threatening to fire Hornacek if he doesn't start using the three guard lineup...right??

Well, if we're to look to Moneyball as a guide to what comes next, we're going to see Hornacek fight back against McDonough and start playing Green again pretty soon.  And then McDonough will do the unthinkable: force Hornacek's hand by trading Green.  Billy Bean said, "Why not Hatteburg?" McDonough is saying, "Why not three point guards?" And then the Phoenix Suns, like the Oakland Athletics did, will rip off a 19 game winning streak and everyone will praise McDonough for his wizardry.

I know, it sounds crazy right now. But I'm going to look pretty smart when they make a movie about this in a few years.  I don't know about y'all, but I'm going to trust in our lord and savior Ryan McDonough.

Disclaimer: none of this probably true. Please don't take anything I just said too seriously.