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Catching Up With ... Rickey Green
Posted: Tuesday November 24, 1998 10:56 AM
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Manny Millan |
Through an eight-team,
14-year
NBA career that spanned three decades and witnessed the
birth of the draft lottery, the salary cap and Jordan Inc.,
Rickey Green watched the game he loves
reinvent itself, and he did too. While his ability to leave
opponents in the dust earned him
acclaim as the league's fastest point guard, his ability to
redefine his game enabled him to retire in 1992 as one of
its oldest players, at age 37. "If I
hadn't learned to play that position properly, I wouldn't
have lasted as long as I did," says Green,
now
44.
Green followed basketball's tenure track from the
playgrounds of Chicago to the NBA. After leading
Chicago's Hirsch High to the 1973 Illinois state championship,
he ended up at
Michigan and, as an explosive scorer and deft ball handler,
he helped the Wolverines make the NCAA
championship
game in '76, his
junior year. The following spring he was drafted by the
Golden State Warriors in the first
round.
Barely a year later—after a lackluster rookie season
with the Warriors and a brief stint with Dick Vitale's
Detroit Pistons—Green
found himself playing for the Hawaii/Billings
Volcanos of the CBA, last refuge of a floor general with a
shooter's mentality and a .380 field goal percentage. The
league offered Green the chance to transform himself. He
learned how to set up his teammates and pick his spots to
shoot. When Utah Jazz coach
and general manager Frank Layden gave him a second chance at
the NBA five games into the 1980-81 CBA season, Green
seized the opportunity. After a solid season as a backup
for the Jazz, he earned a starting spot the following year,
and during his six
seasons as a first-stringer he averaged 12.8 points, 7.6 assists
and
2.03 steals. In his lone All-Star appearance, in '84, he was
named co-captain of the Western Conference
team.
Green now runs a landscaping and snow removal service in
the Chicago area, but he has sent his résumé
to several NBA teams in hopes of landing a job as a scout
or coach. In the meantime he's honing his coaching skills
by working with his 15-year-old
daughter, Kandyce, a
5'6" sophomore guard at Marian Catholic in Chicago
Heights. Over the past summer he made sure she took at
least 200 shots every day. Says Rickey, "She reminds
me a little of myself when I was
playing."
—Jamal Greene
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