Gerald Green - A defensive specialist?

[GreenGrizz]

LoL

[John Locke]

Cyclical, I'll eat my words too

My team is doing good. It's offseason now. I'm just training as hard as I can, atleast 2 times a day.

I always promised you guys some highlights from the Cup game we won.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvowOcH0dOM

I'm #4, 3 3-pointers from the right wing.

The best player on the floor is J. Stefanson on the other team- played for Roma last year (Brandon Jennings' team...actually played a whole lot more minutes than Brandon did). A class act and a very good basketball player...was on the Mavs roster and is trying to get back into the NBA.

[greenbeans]

So that's you at :35 draining 3's like Ray? nice man.

[FeedReed]

gerald green defensive specialist? lmao. that dude stood around more on d then he did on offense(not easy), he doesn't give a **** and even if he did, he's too dumb to grasp any defensive concepts, or any concept in general. he can dunk and that's it.

[GuyClinch]

GG has a lot more in common with JR Smith than he does Kedrick Brown. Kedrick was an awful jumpshooter, had 0 drive to be a basketball player, and the epitome of a lazy waste of talent. A totally different basketball player, even in his strengths. The ONLY similarity in their games is the athleticism, but Kedrick used his in an entirely different way.

Nonsense. Back in the day when we were about to draft Kedrick Brown word had leaked out that he had impressed the brass hitting 15 3 pointers in a row. Kedrick was thought to be a shooter - and a guy who could jump out of the gym.

You just don't like the comparison because your a GG fan. It's pretty spot on. Like I said though Kedrick had more athletic talent. He could D up guys (and that's why we traded Joe Johnson - DAMN YOU OBRIEN)! As for work ethic - I haven't heard that GG likes to work on anything beside dunks.

Pete

[BillessuR6]

Cyclical, I'll eat my words too

My team is doing good. It's offseason now. I'm just training as hard as I can, atleast 2 times a day.

I always promised you guys some highlights from the Cup game we won.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvowOcH0dOM

I'm #4, 3 3-pointers from the right wing.

The best player on the floor is J. Stefanson on the other team- played for Roma last year (Brandon Jennings' team...actually played a whole lot more minutes than Brandon did). A class act and a very good basketball player...was on the Mavs roster and is trying to get back into the NBA.

Great looking shot!

[GuyClinch]

Come teach Rondo to shoot..

[eloper]

GG has a lot more in common with JR Smith than he does Kedrick Brown. Kedrick was an awful jumpshooter, had 0 drive to be a basketball player, and the epitome of a lazy waste of talent. A totally different basketball player, even in his strengths. The ONLY similarity in their games is the athleticism, but Kedrick used his in an entirely different way.

Nonsense. Back in the day when we were about to draft Kedrick Brown word had leaked out that he had impressed the brass hitting 15 3 pointers in a row. Kedrick was thought to be a shooter - and a guy who could jump out of the gym.

You just don't like the comparison because your a GG fan. It's pretty spot on. Like I said though Kedrick had more athletic talent. He could D up guys (and that's why we traded Joe Johnson - DAMN YOU OBRIEN)! As for work ethic - I haven't heard that GG likes to work on anything beside dunks.

Pete

Kedrick's best year of 3 point shooting was 38/99 in 03-04, with him going 46/168 for his entire career (.274)
Gerald shot 95/258 in his 2nd year with us, and is a 36% shooter for 3 for his career.

I don't like the comparison because it's dead wrong. I'm fine with you calling him an awful player, saying he'll be out of the league in a year, etc, but the Kedrick comparison ends at their athleticism (and even there, they used it in totally different ways, and as you said, Kedrick knew how to use his). I could even live with you saying Kedrick was a better player when he was in shape, statistically he was pretty solid over a decent sized stretch, but I'm not ok with the Kedrick comparison on the whole because their games are completely different, and their attitude about basketball is completely different.

On a side note, I was a Kedrick fan (I know, I have a good eye for talent), and still think if it hadn't been for injuries/his awful work ethic he'd of been a quality NBA player. He actually returned to basketball in the DLeague and has played very well thus far. He had/has some game in him, just never had the drive to make anything out of it.

As for work ethic, Gerald was reported time and time again to be the first guy in/last guy out practice wise with the Mavs. EVERYTHING written about him this year talked about how hard he was working. Now whether he's actually getting any better from that work, who knows, but I don't doubt his desire to get better, his desire to be a good basketball player.....and we all know Kedrick had 0s in that department.

[GuyClinch]

As for work ethic, Gerald was reported time and time again to be the first guy in/last guy out practice wise with the Mavs. EVERYTHING written about him this year talked about how hard he was working. Now whether he's actually getting any better from that work, who knows, but I don't doubt his desire to get better, his desire to be a good basketball player.....and we all know Kedrick had 0s in that department.

I have heard some negative things about his professionalism - back when he was with the T-Wolves. Gerald Green's work ethic has been questioned since HS.

The thing about Green is while no one questioned his talent, many questioned his work ethic – which they say didn’t bode well for a high school kid trying to make the NBA.

That's from an Alex Labidou article..

Teams will float out some positive stories about a guy here and there. Like we heard about how Ricky was such a good soldier with us. But then heard he partied too much after he was gone.

[eloper]

He no doubt has had questions about his work ethic, and I don't think it was very good here or in Minnesota. I think he had an awful sense of entitlement, thought he was better than he was, and didn't understand how much work he needed to put in.

I think a lot of that changed after he was cut by his dream team in Houston, and by all accounts it really humbled him off the court. I understand that teams float out nice fluff stories of course, but according to people like Mike Fisher at dallasbasketball.com (covers the team pretty intensively, without any reason to fluff guys up), Gerald was legitimately working his tail off for the Mavs. He did a few interviews with Gerald and he always came off well. The big tell tail sign to me is that even though he may well not be returning to the Mavs (no one really knows what the situation with him is), the coaching staff, GMs, and players all had nothing but nice things to say about him all year. In Minny and Boston there were always grumblings about his attitude, and that never seemed to exist in Dallas. I understand not buying into it, there's no way to know other than watching Dallas practices, but I've seen enough to buy into it. Maybe it's my green shaded glasses, but I think getting cut by Houston served as a real wake up call.

[Cyclical]

Cyclical, I'll eat my words too

My team is doing good. It's offseason now. I'm just training as hard as I can, atleast 2 times a day.

I always promised you guys some highlights from the Cup game we won.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yvowOcH0dOM

I'm #4, 3 3-pointers from the right wing.

Nice! Thanks man. Shot's looking sweet.

[GuyClinch]

I think a lot of that changed after he was cut by his dream team in Houston, and by all accounts it really humbled him off the court

Kedrick Brown was "humbled" by his D league experience so I have heard too. Problem is - and this is my own personal observation about athletes.. There are two kinds of athletes..

Guys who are INTERNALLY motivated. They want to be the best. Money and fame are not the primary motivating factor. They play to win. Sure many LOVE the money and fame don't ge me wrong. But there is a part of them that works tirelessly on their game just because they want to get better. Its an obsession. Much like how recreational tennis players, golfers and basketball players get obsessed. They are always thinking and plotting ways to get better.

And then there are the Kedrick Browns and Gerald Greens of the world. They are incredibly talented but never really appreciated it. So when humbled they realize they even they have to step it up as they decided the NBA life is pretty cool. But its almost always too little too late.

[eloper]

Eh perhaps, but my interpretation of Gerald's work ethic, and he's echoed this in interviews, is that he never really understood just how hard he had to work. He thought he was going above and beyond, and in the meantime the coaches felt he was doing the bare minimum. To me it was a pretty good sign that Gerald signed with Dallas last offseason, because the reports were (and Dallas confirmed it) that he was offered a few multi year deals for more per year, but took the Dallas deal because he felt it was the best place for his development. I can't say I can imagine Kedrick Brown ever doing the same....

I see Gerald as someone who's dedicated to getting better, but someone who was naive earlier in his career and needed to have things put into perspective. Again, I'm perfectly open to the reality that such may be my view through green colored glasses, but thats my opinion. You're certainly entitled to yours, but I don't see the Kedrick Brown attitude in him, if anything I see more of the Rondo attitude without the actual ability to go with it.

Is JR Smith one of those internally motivated guys? Because he sure didn't seem like it until he got to Denver.

[threrf23]

Is JR Smith one of those internally motivated guys? Because he sure didn't seem like it until he got to Denver.

Eh, by multiple reports from back in the day, he was always rather humble and even arguably a good character guy who simply lacked maturity. According to observers and backed up by statistics, he always worked as hard or harder than others, even if he was focused on improving his three point shot as opposed to his all around game. On the defensive end he got a bad rep, but statistically he was persistently an underrated defender except for maybe his rookie season right out of high school. But since his rookie season his defensive stats show persistent year by year improvement on the defensive end backing up the notion that he had actually been working on his all around game.

GG has yet to show any significant improvement. As much as I feel GG is a good risk/reward bet right now, I don't know if I view JR Smith as a good comparison. I don't view Kedrick Brown as a good comparison either, Kedrick was never as talented.