Right now, Shavlik Randolph is employed by a team in the NBA.
Gerald Green is not.
Something has to be wrong with this picture.
This past off-season, Green was one of the many players the Celtics sent to Minnesota as part of the Kevin Garnett trade. He did not spend long in Minnesota, traded to Houston on Feb. 21 for Kirk Snyder and a 2010 second round pick. His stay in Houston lasted all of six games, with Green playing a grand total of 3:34.
Then, as The Boston Globe’s Peter May wrote about in his basketball notes column this past Sunday, the Rockets released Green back on March 8. No team has made an offer to the 2007 Slam Dunk Champ.
I find this almost beyond belief.
The 18th pick in the 2005 NBA draft straight from high school, the 22-year old Green possesses athletic skills like almost no player I have ever watched. That, combined with his age, would make you believe he is worth signing for some team out of the playoff race.
The Timberwolves did not take long to conclude that Green was not in their long-term plans, refusing to extend his contract about one month into the season. This makes Green an unrestricted free agent at the end of this season.
At the time of the trade, however, I never thought Green was a good fit for Minnesota, as they already had Marco Jaric and Rashad McCants, and had recently drafted Corey Brewer. Thus I was not particularly surprised Minnesota did not pick up Green’s option.
If one reads May’s notebook, there is a lot made of the fact that Green is an amazing dunker, but then both the writer and his former coach Doc Rivers seem to say he isn’t much more.
This is what I really don’t understand. He is far from a complete basketball player, and may struggle on defense, but he is much more than a guy who can just dunk.
Green has a very pretty, albeit inconsistent, jump shot. Looking at his stats from 2007 for the Celtics, Green played in 81 games, averaging 10.4 points per game. This was at the age of 21, in only his second year in the league. For comparison, Tracy McGrady, who also went directly to the NBA from high school, averaged 9.3 points in his second year in the league.
A closer look at Green’s 2007 stats reveals that when Doc Rivers let him play, Green produced. In the 42 games where Green played more than 20 minutes last season, he averaged 15.0 points, scoring 20 or more 14 times. He scored a career-high 33 in a game versus the Hawks.
There was also the game against Cleveland, a 107-104 loss, where Green scored 21 points in only 19 minutes, including 14 in the second quarter helping Boston to a 54-49 half-time lead.
His points were not all dunks. Green shot 36.8% from three, and is a 36.6% career shooter from beyond the arc. Paul Pierce, granted with a much larger sample size, is a 36.2 career shooter from three.
4 comments Last one added about 1 year ago — Leave a Comment
Anonymous about 1 year ago
Rockets cut Green to make room for Mike Harris, who has been playing in CBA (China). Because Rockets need player who can perform NBOW while Carl Landry was out. And Mike Harris worked extra hard to wint this position. So I wound say if Gerald Green do the same and go to D-leage ( or any leage) he will still have shot for NBA.
Fun fact: Mike Harris was Dunk champ of CBA 2007.
Edit Comment Cancel
Chad Ridgeway about 1 year ago
Haha, love the title and opening sentence to this article. Anyway, he'll be playing next season, there are a handful of teams already trying to pick him up, but it is shocking to see how far his stock has fallen (traded by some of the league's worst teams and then cut!). Like you said, I hope this is only a minor setback and a not a career killing trend.
Edit Comment Cancel
Dave Nemetz about 1 year ago
Yeah, Green should pick up somewhere. It's interesting to trace the career arcs of a lot of these straight out of high school guys. They seem to either be big booms (Garnett, Kobe, Amare, LeBron, Dwight Howard), big busts (Jonathan Bender, Kwame Brown, Perkins), but not much in between—the guys who become serviceable players, not stars, with productive careers. The few that I can think of are Al Harrington and Steven Jackson. Jackson bounced around the league a bit before coming into his own, maybe Green can do the same (hopefully without picking up the bad rap and criminal record that Captain Jack has)...
Edit Comment Cancel
andy miller about 1 year ago
brian cardinal is in the nba, with a long term deal. gerald green is out.
green was on the c's last year, a terrible team, but still, a kid in his second year out of high school averaged double figures in the nba. i have to think he will latch on somewhere next year, and maybe these bad turn of events will help him focus and realize there is more to the NBA than just talent.
in boston, he said all the right things, but yes, you have to wonder if he is not the hardest worker out there. i wish the best for him, and hope he can still be a good NBA player. I think he can do it.
Edit Comment Cancel
Leave a Comment
You must register to post a comment.