Danny Green says he was “left in a weird space” last season with the Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cleveland Cavaliers made a small signing in the middle of last season to try and bolster their playoff prospects with the addition of veteran sharpshooter Danny Green. But Green ended up not seeing the court too much for myriad reasons, including getting sick. In an interview on The Hoop Chat with Emily Austin, Green talked about his time in Cleveland last season, returning to the organization that drafted him, and his future.

“It was a great full circle moment, it meant a lot,” Green said when asked how it felt to come back and play for the team that drafted him. But seems like his role was not as initially described by the Cavaliers before they signed him.

“It was just tough being in that position, that situation. There was a lot of weird air of not knowing what was going on, what was happening, what my role was going to be, or what it was. There was talks differently before I got there than when I got there. Ultimately in the time I thought I was going to get my opportunity to actually play throughout the regular season, I caught COVID.”

So was COVID the reason he did not get much playing time with the Cavaliers?

“Not really,” said the 36-year-old Green. Decisions that were not made by me is why I was not able to play or show that I was healthy.”

“I played at the end of the season, and the playoffs came, and he (Cavs head coach J.B. Bickerstaff) wanted to stick with his guys,” Green continued. “So he stuck with his guys, but that left me in this weird space of people not knowing if I was healthy or not.”

Green appeared in eight games for the Cavaliers hitting 44.8% (13/29) of his threes on a total of 95 minutes. A three-time champion and respected locker-room presence, Green was largely unable to find his footing with Cleveland the second time around. In the playoffs against the New York Knicks, Green hit one three in 40 minutes of action across the series. But it appears that the Cavs kept Green as more of a “break glass in case of emergency” type of player, sending him in when things got dire. Perhaps not the role that he was pitched before signing with Cleveland.

As of the time of this writing, Green is still a free agent and is waiting on the right situation before signing.

“When you’re the old guy coming off injury, the phone doesn’t ring as much,” he told Austin. “So I have to get back and prove that I’m healthy. Just waiting to see where the trades land.”

“Maybe some people think I’m done playing. I’m not done.”