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Former Toronto Raptors guard Danny Green has announced his retirement from the NBA.

The 37-year-old spent 15 years in the league, with a reputation for his “three-and-D” play and helping three teams to an NBA title, including the Raptors.

“I’m officially moving on from the game of basketball and the NBA,” Green said on his YouTube channel. “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 joined Toronto in 2018 when he was traded by the San Antonio Spurs alongside Kawhi Leonard for DeMar DeRozan, Jakob Poeltl, and a protected 2019 first-round pick, a move that changed the course of Raptors history as they won their first-ever NBA title that season.

He shot a career-high 45.5 per cent from three-point range, averaging 10.3 points across 80 regular-season games with Toronto.

He also won titles in 2013-14 with the Spurs — alongside Leonard — and with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2019-20.

Green was a starter on all three championship clubs.

“People ask me, ‘How did you learn how to become a winner? How do you become a leader?’” Green said. “And it’s the people before me, the people that have taught me, my coaches. They prepared me to be successful because ultimately I’m just a normal kid. I had some height, but I was not freakishly athletic. I just worked very hard, and I had the good resources around me to learn how to be professional and do things the right way.”

Green, a second-round pick (46th overall) by the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2009, averaged 8.7 points, 3.4 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 832 career games. He also spent time with the Philadelphia 76ers and Memphis Grizzlies.

Green retires with 1,577 three-pointers, 43rd-most in NBA history. He’s one of only 12 players to make that many three -pointers and shoot at least 40 per cent from beyond the arc.

He’s also ninth in post-season three-pointers, with 315 of those.

Green is one of only four players — Kyle Korver, Rashard Lewis and Trevor Ariza are the others — to make as many three-pointers as he did without being a first-round draft pick

Green last played for the 76ers during the 2023-24 season, appearing in only two games before being waived in November.

He said he’s hoping to work in media and indicated that he has some opportunities to consider.

“I’m excited for the next chapter, the next journey,” Green said.

With files from The Associated Press.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 10, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

VANCOUVER – The Calgary Flames were already preaching the importance of resilience a single game into the NHL season.

The bend-but-don’t-break mentality paid off Wednesday when the Flames rallied from an early three-goal deficit and edged the Vancouver Canucks 6-5 in overtime.

“That’s kind of the mentality we have to have all year, is we’re going to go down a bit, or we’re going to get knocked down, but we’re always going to keep coming back and, just building shift by shift, brick by brick,” said centre Connor Zary.

Zary scored the game-winner 92 seconds into overtime.

Calgary appeared poised for a loss midway through the first period Wednesday.

Trouble began 7:41 into the matchup when Canucks centre J.T. Miller slammed Kevin Rooney into the boards, leaving the Flames forward lying still on the ice.

A scrum erupted behind the Flames’ net and, once punishment had been doled out, Vancouver had a power play.

Daniel Sprong scored with the man advantage and Vancouver added two more goals in less than three minutes.

Newcomer Anthony Mantha got Calgary on the board with a short-handed goal.

In his first regular-season game for the Flames, the bruising winger — who signed a one-year, US$3.5-million deal July 1 — completed the Gordie Howe hat trick with a fight and an assist.

Despite his tally, Vancouver went into the first intermission up 4-1.

The Flames needed to stay out of the penalty box in the first period, said Flames defenceman MacKenzie Weegar.

“It was just penalty problems. And I think the hit took us away from our game a bit,” he said. “But I like how we responded. (Rooney) is one of our best buddies and we love him, and he’s all good. But we stuck up for him in there, and we rallied for him tonight.”

The first period saw 30 minutes worth of penalties handed out, including 19 to the Flames.

Head coach Ryan Huska told his players after the first period to calm down.

“I felt like we played a panic period. We didn’t have a lot of composure, and it resulted in all the power plays,” he said. “But I’m really happy that they stuck with it and didn’t go away, and we found a way to get a couple points.”

With the Canucks’ net empty, Miller levelled the score 5-5 with 97 seconds left on the game clock to force overtime.

The Flames weren’t troubled, Zary said.

“Even when they scored that goal, someone yelled on the bench ‘Hey, it doesn’t matter boys. Let’s go right back at them,'” he said.

Zary, Mantha, defenceman Rasmus Andersson and centre Martin Pospisil each scored and had an assist for Calgary.

Weegar and Jonathan Huberdeau also scored, while Nazem Kadri added a pair of assists.

After allowing four goals on 15 shots in the first period, Flames goalie Dan Vladar stopped nine of the next 10 he faced.

Brock Boeser scored twice for the Canucks, while Miller had a goal and an assist. Conor Garland and Sprong rounded out the scoring, and Arturs Silovs made 20 saves.

Vancouver made the game hard on themselves, said captain Quinn Hughes, who posted two helpers.

“I’m not sure how many leads like that we blew last year, so it’s not a characteristic of ours,” he said. “But saying that, we definitely have work to do to clean that up, and I’m looking forward to doing that.”

Calgary missed the playoffs last season after finishing with a 38-39-5 record. Expectations were low for a younger, overhauled roster this season.

“There’s no quit,” Flames captain Mikael Backlund said. “We believe in ourselves, and we’re going to fight till the end. So no matter who the opponent is, we’re going to go out every night and try and win games.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 10, 2024.

Nick Suzuki and the Montreal Canadiens were dreaming big.

The club stunned the Toronto Maple Leafs in the first round of the 2021 playoffs before sweeping the Winnipeg Jets and besting the Vegas Golden Knights.

The second of two pandemic-truncated seasons — this one with unique divisions — would see Montreal face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Stanley Cup final.

Suzuki, then a second-year centre, soon felt like his team was battling with one hand tied behind its back.

The NHL’s long-term injured reserve rules meant the Lightning were roughly US$18 million over the league’s $81.5-million salary cap — which doesn’t apply in the post-season — once the playoffs started.

“We didn’t really get helped out with that,” Suzuki recalled.

And everything, to be clear, was above board.

Tampa forward Nikita Kucherov missed the entire 56-game schedule following hip surgery, but was ready for Game 1 of the playoffs. The Russian winger went on to finish first in scoring that spring and early summer, winning the Conn Smythe Trophy as post-season MVP and helping the Lightning secure their second straight Cup.

Kucherov’s $9.5-million salary, however, hadn’t counted a cent against the cap during the season. Along with other LTIR moves — a player must sit out at least 10 regular-season games and 24 days for clubs to get salary relief — that allowed Tampa to massage its roster in ways that likely wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

The NHL monitors the system to ensure teams respect the process, but there have been questions about cap circumvention ever since the Lightning won in 2021 and Vegas benefitted from LTIR on the way to capturing the Cup in 2023.

The Lightning leaned into the narrative after their victory, with Kucherov sporting an “$18M Over The Cap” T-shirt during the team’s celebrations.

“Obviously a loophole in the system,” said Suzuki, now Montreal’s captain. “Teams are fine to take advantage of that. It’s definitely a touchy subject.

“If you’re using it, you like it. And if you’re not … ”

Vegas captain Mark Stone had back surgery in February 2023 and was on LTIR until Game 1 of the playoffs that spring. The accrued cap space helped the Golden Knights acquire forwards Ivan Barbashev and Teddy Blueger, and goaltender Jonathan Quick for their post-season push.

Stone was again on LTIR last season with a lacerated spleen, which along with star centre Jack Eichel also being sidelined for a long stretch, allowed management to acquire defenceman Noah Hanifin along with forwards Tomas Hertl and Anthony Mantha.

Stone was again ready for his team’s playoff opener, although Vegas fell to the Dallas Stars in seven games.

The Lightning and Golden Knights, who have both repeatedly defended their moves as firmly within the LTIR framework, are not the first teams to use the rules this way.

The Chicago Blackhawks put Patrick Kane on LTIR in February 2015, but he was back in time for the playoffs — along with some newly acquired teammates — before helping the franchise win its third Cup in six years.

Colorado Avalanche centre Nathan MacKinnon said that while the system might need an update, he doesn’t believe players would sit out when healthy purely for cap reasons.

“Guys want to play,” he said. “It would be hard from the trade deadline on just to sit out and wait. I’d like to think the integrity of teams and guys is in the right place.

“But it’s definitely unfortunate.”

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said there’s a majority appetite across the league’s 32 general managers to potentially tweak the system, but the way cap space is accumulated and calculated in-season doesn’t make for a simple equation.

“The majority (of GMs) would like us to continue to consider making some kind of adjustment,” Daly said. “That’s what we’ll look at.”

Toronto Maple Leafs GM Brad Treliving said one possible solution thrown around is a playoff salary cap.

“There’s always great ideas,” he cautioned. “Then you forget about the unintended consequences. I’d like to get more information on how it would all work and how it would all look.”

Edmonton Oilers centre Leon Draisaitl said regardless of the rules, efforts will always be made to find workarounds.

“It’s forever going to be that way where people are going to try and get creative,” he said.

Seattle Kraken defenceman Brandon Montour said simple fairness is key.

“If you’re sitting out an eight-, nine-, ten-million-dollar player, you shouldn’t have that much cap space,” he said. “You should have, like, half of it. You shouldn’t be able to use the eight, nine million bucks and be able to pick up three players.”

Suzuki, who has lived through a series where the ice felt tilted, hopes there’s eventually LTIR tinkering.

“It’s definitely given teams a huge advantage,” he said. “Sometimes you luck into it and other times it seems like it might be a strategy. I’m not in the medical room. I don’t really know what’s going on with those teams.

“It could be all fair.”

But he has his doubts.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 9, 2024.

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