Many interested parties — certainly including many here at Mavs Moneyball and across #MFFL Twitter — had sights set on hometown product Desmond Bane out of TCU at pick number 18.
The six games he played for the Stars was too small a sample size to draw many conclusions, but he wasn’t exactly putting up the kind of numbers that demanded playing time in the big leagues.
But Green proved to be just too raw of a project for anything other than spot minutes and a handful of emergency starts during the Mavericks’ covid-induced stumble in late January.
The times he did provide a spark, it was usually due to a hustle play or solid defense like he showed in the game late in the season against Miami.
For a guy billed as a “ready to go” 3-and-D player, he never took more than three shots from distance in a game , and shot an ugly 16% from distance for the season.
Notably Luka Doncic, who had to play himself into game shape on the fly after an offseason spent mainly on a boat if his social media was anything to go by, as well as Kristaps Porzingis, who was out, still rehabbing an offseason knee surgery.
The Mavericks selected Green because he is a fantastic athlete with great measurables in a position of need, banking on the idea that they’ll be able to teach him how to be an NBA player as a matter of course.