Bobby Brown, the former NBA guard, would ask the same question to teammate Jalen Green every day.
Green was itching to get on the court but had to wait patiently for his turn — there were several pros present at the gym and the unwritten rule is the young guns have to sit.
In the G League was flanked by young, exciting talents like Jonathan Kuminga, a fellow NBA lottery-bound prospect as well as Isaiah Todd, Princepal Singh and Daishen Nix.
Green’s decision to join the G League team and forgo college was a shock to many, including his high school coach Brad Roznovosky.
“I’ll tell you what, the more I think about it, and watch it in the G League, I think it was the 100 percent the right decision,” Roznovosky said.
But there’s also value in being around professionals, learning pro sets and terminologies collegiate athletes might not have.
The five-time NBA champion — three as a player, two as an assistant coach — catered the offense to the personnel he had.
Green played well, averaging 17.9 points, 4.1 rebounds, 2.8 assists and 1.5 steals a game.
Some of it was because of the way the team was formed, while others weren’t fans of how much money some people on the team made.
Brown was impressed with how Green was able to control games, knowing when to take his own shots versus when to get others involved — the direct product of the work he put in during his final year at Prolific.
“In the G League, Jalen could have easily taken 20 shots a game,” Roznovosky said.
That’s a testament to the work he’s put in his whole life, the willingness to absorb knowledge and a hunger to get better consistently.
Around the same time, an eighth-grader named Jalen Green was tearing up Fresno, making waves in the AAU circuits and middle school basketball.
San Joaquin Memorial ticked all of those boxes.
The program wasted no time setting up a campus visit for Green and his family.
During that visit, Roznovosky said he was taken by Green’s calm demeanor, personality and overall attitude — three traits still present in him today.
Roznovosky and his assistants were impressed at how quickly Green adjusted to the high school game, particularly after an early-season tournament where San Joaquin went 4-0 and Green grabbed MVP honors.
We had a lot of young talent that year, too, but he earned a spot.
This is common as organizations try to find out more about the players they could take on draft night.
But these teams aren’t calling about skill set and talent — those are well known already.
Even as one of the youngest players on the roster as a freshman, Green was loved by his teammates, peers and teachers.
For example, on a few occasions, the coaching staff was hard on Green early on about his defense — they wanted him to play harder on that other end of the floor.
Geron was picked up full court by Green every day, at times overwhelmed by the constant pressure and talking from Green.
“I’m just tryna get you better bro,” Geron recalls Green telling him.
San Joaquin finished the season with a 26-7 record and entered the Central Section CIF Division 2 tournament as the second-overall seed, behind Ridgeview.
The Panthers finished the year with a 25-7 record, entered the tournament as the top seed and cruised all the way to a Division 2 championship.
San Joaquin participated in the Thanksgiving Hoopfest in Dallas, a basketball tournament featuring the region’s best players.
He continued to tap into his offensive arsenal, again increasing his scoring output from 27.9 to 30.1 and his assists to 3.6 per game.
The Napa Valley-based basketball academy had quickly become a stepping stone for elite high school players trying to make the college and NBA jump.
Prolific had also established a relationship with Green earlier from the AAU circuits.
Everyone at Prolific knew Green was a big competitor, something that hadn’t changed since his early days at San Joaquin.
In practice, Green and Fuca would go at each other, only because he held Green to a different standard than the other players on the team.
“Definitely the level raised to another standard with Jalen,” Fuca said.
With three years of hard work under his belt, his game hit new heights.
In Green’s senior season, he averaged a career-high 31.5 points, 7.5 rebounds and 5.0 assists per game, nearly bests across the board.
From that 20, they had narrowed the list down to five schools: Fresno State, Memphis, Oregon, Auburn and USC.
He knows that I’m loyal to him and would do anything for him and his family.
To get him ready for the next level, Prolific’s coaching staff wanted to work on Green’s decision-making.
They also wanted to work on his defense, helping him coexist with his new height and length.
When Prolific was in Kentucky for the annual Chick-fil-A Classic, the team ended up losing 63-59 in the semi-finals to Indiana’s La Lumiere.
There was an awards ceremony and Green had been named to the all-tournament team, so time would be tight, but Green wouldn’t stop complaining.
He’s come a long way from the lanky kid who walked into the gym in San Joaquin Memorial, a long way from hurried cheeseburgers at Prolific Prep and even his rookie pro debut with the G League Ignite.