Is Jeff Green Final Piece to Memphis Grizzlies' Championship Puzzle?

Three years ago, Jeff Green underwent surgery to repair an aortic aneurysm in his heart. He missed the entirety of the 2011-12 NBA season that followed, but the operation saved his life, of which his basketball career was but a part.

Now, Green will have the opportunity to put his talents and energy to good use for the Memphis Grizzlies, as they attempt to keep pace in the ever-escalating Western Conference arms race.

According to ESPN.com's Marc Stein, the crux of the deal revolves around Memphis sending Tayshaun Prince and a first-round pick to the Boston Celtics in exchange for Green, who holds a $9.2 million player option on his contract for 2015-16. 

The deal will officially be submitted for league approval Monday, per Stein. 

Word first surfaced of this possibility earlier in the week, when Stein reported that Memphis had its sights set on Green and Miami's Luol Deng as upgrades for its shaky wing rotation. Per Stein, the Grizzlies' front office threw its weight behind Green once talks with the Heat regarding Deng's availability fell flat:

Either way, Memphis was clearly in need of someone fitting Green's profile and will soon have its man in place, perhaps to serve as the solution to the team's proximal and ultimate problems.

The Grizzlies already sport a strong battery around which to organize their on-court efforts. Marc Gasol is entrenched at center—an All-Star, Defensive Player of the Year and current MVP candidate all wrapped into one giant, Iberian package. Mike Conley has played like an All-Star at point guard. 

Courtney Lee, Memphis' midseason addition from Beantown in 2013-14, has been a revelation at shooting guard, spreading the floor while spitting hot fire from three (48.9 percent). Tony Allen, another former Celtic, remains the heart and soul of this squad.

Brandon Dill/Associated Press

Zach Randolph, meanwhile, had continued to bulldoze his way through opposing power forwards, until swelling in his knee knocked him out of Memphis' loss to the Chicago Bulls on Dec. 19. The Grizzlies went 4-5 without Randolph, slipping toward the second tier of the West's ravenous playoff pack as a result.

Z-Bo's absence laid bare the Grizzlies' lack of reliable depth behind him. And their approach at small forward has more closely resembled a kitchen-sink toss than a concrete fix. Allen is a difference-maker defensively but doesn't pose much of a threat on offense. Vince Carter (30.2 percent from three) and Quincy Pondexter (23.3 percent from three) have struggled to pick up the shooting slack left in the wake of Mike Miller following LeBron James to Cleveland.

As for Prince, his fate was all but sealed once Allen booted him back to the bench.

Green won't solve any of these problems on his own, but his size and skill set should help Memphis to address each of its deficiencies in some small way, at the very least.

At 6'9", he is big enough to fill in at power forward when needed. He's certainly better suited to the 3, but in spot duty up front, Green should give Grizzlies head coach Dave Joerger another option at the 4 when Randolph rests. 

	eFG	PER	Opponent PER
SF	.502	15.2	12.9
PF	.381	11.2	25.2

He's never been cut out to be the go-to guy on a good team either, as his game-to-game inconsistency as a scorer (and the familiar gripes of Celtics fans to that effect) will attest. Over his last two seasons, Green had been asked to carry Boston's offense out of sheer necessity. He responded by averaging better than 17 points per game but fluctuated all too frequently between feast and famine.

"Jeff has been our best player this year and has had a fantastic year...He has been our most consistent scorer," Celtics general manager Danny Ainge told 98.5 The Sports Hub’s Toucher and Rich (via CBS Boston).

As soon as he lands in the River City, Green will immediately become the Grizzlies' most gifted perimeter scorer—which says as much about Memphis as it does about its newest acquisition.

Not that he'll have to shoulder such a burden for the Grizzlies. At most, Green lands fourth in Memphis' pecking order, behind Gasol, Randolph and Conley. Depending on the situation, Lee might get priority ahead of him.

For that role, Green is well-suited, if not considerably overqualified. Once upon a time, he thrived as a glue guy behind Kevin Durant, Russell Westbrook and James Harden, before the Oklahoma City Thunder shipped him to Boston in a deal for Kendrick Perkins at the 2011 trade deadline.

Brandon Dill/Associated Press

The core in Memphis isn't quite so otherworldly in its collective talent, but this group has been together long enough—and has accomplished enough as a unit—to know what works and what doesn't. Their "Grit-N-Grind" identity is as unshakable as ever. It'll be up to the Grizzlies to figure out how Green fits into that equation, and on him to follow that lead.

Beyond that, he could strengthen a couple of Memphis' less glaring weaknesses: perimeter shooting and transition scoring. Green isn't a great three-point shooter (34 percent for his career), and the Grizzlies' top-10 offense has performed just fine, despite deriving a paltry 16.7 percent of its points (28th in the league) from long range, per NBA.com.

Still, it won't hurt Memphis to have another player who's credible enough from that distance, so long as the looks are good ones, to draw an extra foot or two of defensive attention. That much space could be key to Gasol and Randolph, who tend to draw big crowds in the middle of the floor, particularly in the postseason. 

And while fast breaks may be anathema to a team that caters to its towering frontcourt (and rightfully so), there's no use turning down easy points if someone is capable of scoring them. For years, Green has shown he has the athleticism and all-around skill to change ends with aplomb.

Transition scoring has never really been a priority for the Grizzlies. They attempted, for a time, to push the pace last season at the behest of Joerger and the front office, to little effect or benefit. Green might afford them another opportunity to restart that experiment, albeit in microcosm.

Truth be told, so much about Green—his size, strengths and weaknesses, his fit with this team, even his age—recalls the silhouette of another wing who was spirited out of Memphis during the 2012-13 campaign, as Clips Nation's Justin Russo pointed out:

But, as CBS Sports' Matt Moore tweeted in rebuttal, some key differences between the two players could make Green a more seamless addition to this group of Grizzlies:

"

This comparison must end. The problem with Rudy in Memphis wasn’t production, it was decision making.

— Hardwood Paroxysm (@HPbasketball) January 10, 2015"

The question is, does Green bolster the Grizzlies' standing in the West? Grantland's Bill Simmons thinks he will:

At the very least, Green should help strengthen Memphis' case for a slice of home-court advantage in the Western Conference playoffs. The Golden State Warriors still have the inside track, now that Andrew Bogut is back and their hold on the No. 1 seed hasn't slipped.

So while Green might not be the one to put Memphis over the top, he should give the Grizzlies as good a shot as any at emerging from the wilderness of the West with their title hopes intact.

Josh Martin covers the NBA for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.