Taurean Green knows all about the doubts. He’s heard them all his life so it’s nothing new to hear it again, this time from NBA types that he’s probably an inch or two too short and a step or two too slow. Everybody, it seems, wants to doubt Taurean except for one person that counts.
“I can play in the NBA,” he said with that impish smile, the same one that used to light up his face every time he heard how he wasn’t supposed to be successful at the University of Florida. “It’s just a matter of patience on my part, staying focused and learning what I have to learn and then taking advantage of my chance when I get it. I’ll get the chance. I know that. I just have to be ready for it when it comes.”
As a rookie in the NBA he got to play a grand total of 75 minutes in 17 games, eight with the Portland Trail Blazers, who drafted him in the second round, and then nine with the Denver Nuggets, who acquired him in a midseason trade. He averaged only 1.6 points per game and got more playing time in two trips to the Developmental League than he did with Portland and Denver.
A dream season it wasn’t but by now, Green is used to taking the unconventional route.
As a high school star at Cardinal Gibbons in Fort Lauderdale, Green was considered second best in the state. Darius Washington of Orlando Edgewater was the “Can’t Miss Kid.” Washington signed with Memphis after flirting with a direct leap to the NBA straight out of high school.
Green signed with the Gators out of high school but only after Washington committed to Memphis, Jordan Farmar chose UCLA and at least two other prominent point guards said no. Green didn’t mind being the fourth or fifth point guard on the Florida recruiting board. When Billy Donovan offered him a scholarship, he immediately ditched plans to sign with Florida State and never considered it a blow to his ego that he wasn’t the first choice of the Gators.
He spent his freshman year at Florida backing up Anthony Roberson and unless there was foul trouble, he didn’t see many significant moments. By the time his sophomore year rolled around, the doubters were stating their case that the Gators were in deepest and darkest at the point.
“All that did was motivate me,” said Green Monday afternoon as he sat in front of his old locker at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center. “People that doubt me and criticize me have always motivated me.”
Doubts and doubters fuel a fire that rages in Green. The impish smile and the happy-go-lucky exterior is a façade. Below the surface, is a competitive edge that buns with the white hot heat of a thousand suns. He loves to prove his critics wrong.
During his University of Florida career he silenced the critics by becoming the one indispensable piece of the Florida basketball puzzle. At one time or another, Al Horford, Joakim Noah, Corey Brewer and Lee Humphrey missed games because they were ill or hurt. Green never missed a game. He was the glue that held two national championship teams together.
The “Can’t Miss Kid” never made it to the Final Four. Darius Washington left Memphis for the NBA after his sophomore year and nobody drafted him. He played in the Czech Republic last season.
Farmar helped take UCLA to the NCAA championship game as a sophomore. He went head to head with Taurean Green in that game. While Farmar was throwing up bricks and turning the ball over, Taurean Green was the flawless floor general that led the Gators to a decisive championship game victory. Farmar left early for the NBA but Green came back for a chance at a second straight NCAA championship along with his roomies Al Horford, Joakim Noah and Corey Brewer. In the 2007, Green got a chance to haunt UCLA a second time, this one in the semi-finals, and he hit clutch threes down the stretch in the championship game as the Gators made it two straight NCAA titles.
Green called it a Florida career after that second NCAA championship. He chose to leave a year early along with best friends Horford, Noan and Brewer, all of whom were selected in the lottery phase of the 2007 NBA Draft. Green was picked by Portland in the second round and that only set the critics off again.
“The critics have always said I’m too small, too slow, can’t shoot … can’t do this can’t do that … not a high major player … you name it,” said Green. “I don’t let it go out one ear and then the other, but I don’t let it get me down, either. I mean I hear it but I just let it motivate me and I just use it to shove it up everybody’s …. ”
The NBA experience wasn’t all that bad, he insists. He may not have played much but he practiced a lot against established NBA players and all the while he was practicing, he was absorbing everything like a sponge.
Portland sent him down to the NBA Developmental League and after he was traded to Denver, the Nuggets sent him down for another stretch in the D-League. He showed enough in both trips down that he was recalled to the big club.
“With both teams I played in the D-League and I was happy with that because I wasn’t playing much with the big team,” he said. “I went down there and played really well the first time down there. I averaged 20 points, 10 assists and five rebounds. The second time I went down there I averaged 15 points and five assists and four rebounds. It was good experience just getting to play against good competition. I was happy just to have a chance to play.”
The chance to play was important. He learned quickly that playing point guard in the NBA is a huge leap from college basketball. The league has plenty of starting point guards that had to earn their playing time at not ready for prime time outposts such as the CBA, the NBA D-League or playing in Europe. Green is willing to pay his dues and beat the bushes for the chance to be a significant contributor with an NBA team.
“It’s a time to adapt, a learning experience,” he said. “Even though I didn’t play a lot I got to watch every day, I got to practice against great players and then I played in the D-League, so it was a good year for learning. I can play in the NBA. I have to be patient and wait for my time and get in the right situation.”
He will be playing with Denver’s summer league team starting in July. That’s a chance for him to catch the eye of Coach George Karl, who needs to start looking at a youngster to run the team since Allen Iverson is 33 and backups Anthony Carter and Chucky Atkins are both 34.
To prepare for the summer league, he’s working out every day at the Florida practice facility, playing pickup games against the Gators’ seven scholarship returnees and transfer Vernon Macklin as well as Horford and Lee Humphrey, the fifth starter on those two NCAA championship teams.
He’s taking courses in Summer A, working toward his University of Florida degree. When he chose to leave a year early for the NBA he had to promise his dad, Big Sid, that he would earn his college degree.
“I’m keeping my promise to my dad,” he said. “I’m back here taking Summer A classes and getting closer to getting my degree. I’ve got Al back here and all the young guys are here to play pickup. It makes me realize how much I miss college life and how much I miss being around the University of Florida.”
He watched as many Florida games as he could last season and he says he was on pins and needles just watching the Gators play. Watching the Gators struggle in the month of February was tough but he understood that it was all part of the growing up process.
“I was more nervous for them than I ever was when I was playing,” he said. “They were just so young and so inexperienced. When we came along in 2004 we had guys like David Lee and (Adrian) Moss and (Matt) Walsh and Anthony Roberson here to teach us. These guys didn’t have anyone so they kind of had to learn on their own. Those guys were thrown into the fire from day one.”
Green had the luxury of learning from an All-SEC point guard in Anthony Roberson. He was eased into a backup role and his minutes increased as the season progressed.
By the time he was a sophomore, he was ready to take on starter’s minutes.
“It’s tough for any freshman to play in the SEC,” he said. “I didn’t have to start as a freshman so I got to learn. They had to play from the first day and they had to learn from their own mistakes. They’re going to be a lot better next year because they have experience now and they know what it takes to win here.”
His hope for the young Gators is that they will learn to play fearlessly and yet with a certain amount of fearfulness.
“They can’t be afraid to take a chance and they can’t be afraid to take a big shot,” he said. “If you’re going to win basketball games, you have to take chances and be willing to make the big mistake. You can’t be afraid to make a mistake or miss a shot. That’s the thing about us on our two national championship teams — nobody was afraid to take a big shot. ”
Green was never afraid to take the big shot when the Gators needed it the most. He had that sense of knowing when to pull the trigger and missing a shot never scared him.
What did scare him was losing.
“Losing has to scare you,” he said. “Missing a shot or making a mistake is part of basketball. You play the game and those things are going to happen. Those things never scared me but losing always did. I think that’s why we were so good as a team those two years. We weren’t afraid of any team we played but losing scared all of us and it motivated us to play as hard as we could and to be the best we could.”
He was also motivated by Billy Donovan. His relationship with Donovan was often misinterpreted by fans who saw the coach yelling a lot at his point guard. Some fans thought Green was Donovan’s whipping boy.
Green says that wasn’t the case at all, that there was a method to Donovan’s madness.
“Coach (Donovan) is the best,” he said. “I think when I came here my dad told Coach Donovan to get on my ass and stay on it and he did. He did it for three years and all it did was bring out the best in me.”
Now he’s back in Gainesville, getting ready to take on the familiar role of trying to silence his critics.
“That’s the story of my life,” said Green. “I’ve always been doubted.”
And he’s always proved them wrong.