University of North Carolina Athletics
Lucas: Green Means Winning
September 10, 2014 | Men's Basketball, Featured Writers, Adam Lucas
Danny Green doesn't even let you fully complete the sentence before he starts shaking his head.
The point being made to him is this: in the history of University of North Carolina basketball, only three players own an NCAA championship ring and an NBA championship ring. Those players are Michael Jordan, James Worthy...and Danny Green.
As soon as he hears the names of Jordan and Worthy, he knows exactly where the discussion is going, and it's clear he doesn't feel comfortable in such illustrious company.
"It's a weird list of guys," says Green, who earned his NBA ring in June as a starter with the San Antonio Spurs. "It seems like one of those guys doesn't belong. I feel very lucky. It doesn't sound right to me. It's a list that when most people hear it, it doesn't make sense. Why is Danny Green even on that list? I was lucky to be in winning organizations at Carolina, and then to Cleveland my rookie year, and then to San Antonio."
His latest championship set Green off on a whirlwind summer. He took the trophy back to his hometown of North Babylon, N.Y., where he was honored with a parade and a key to the city.
"It was great," Green says. "It was surprising. They put a nice little parade together for me and a ceremony. It was awesome to be one of the kids in my community who is looked up to by younger kids and by adults who I used to look up to...It was a lot of fun to be able to hang around my family and friends and celebrate something we did this summer."
Green, of course, was also honored in Chapel Hill recently, where he received a warm reception at Saturday night's football game.
What's most striking about the most recent Tar Heel world champion is that he's still exactly the same person he was when he was wearing Carolina blue. He still greets everyone with a smile and a hug, he still puts great value on the people who have been there along his road to his status as an NBA starter, and he still seems amazed that anyone would know who he is.
Given his status on one of the shortest lists in Tar Heel basketball history, it seemed only logical to ask him about the similarities between the two organizations with which he has won championships--Carolina and San Antonio. Both are known as winning programs, so how do they do it?
"It's easier in college, because you have a younger group of guys," he says. "It's harder to make grown men think a certain way. That's not to say that it's easy in college. Coach Williams does a great job of getting everyone on the same page and molding them a certain way and doing things the right way. I learned that at Carolina. It's easy for me to adjust to the Spurs organization, because I was doing those same things here. 'Pop' (Spurs coach Gregg Popovich) recruits guys without egos or attitude problems. He recruits great people first, who want to win, but are competitive and coachable."
During the 2014 NBA Playoffs, as Green shot his way to 9.3 points per game and hit 47.5% of his three-pointers, former NBA coach and current ABC analyst Mark Jackson identified two qualities of Green's play he admired during a national television broadcast: coachability and selflessness.
Green's take on why those two qualities matter to a successful player:
Coachability: "All the coaches I've been blessed to play for have taught me to strive for greatness while being coachable, and molding me into a true professional and not letting my ego or attitude get in the way of me becoming a better player."
Selflessness: "That's just our team. If you want to win, you have to have it. Unless you're playing a one-man sport, you have to be selfless. You have to have other guys around you to win. If everybody is on the same page then if you don't have a shot, you make a play for someone else on your team. You rely on them to have your back on defense or offense. Tony (Parker) relies on me to be in the corner when he's stuck in the paint."
As he prepares to return to San Antonio for training camp, Green has become one of the best examples of one of Roy Williams' favorite messages to his team: no matter what you accomplish individually, your best athletic memories will come when your team does something great.
The head coach frequently reminds his Tar Heel teams of that maxim. Green, it seems, is living it.
"Those are the best memories I'll have," he says. "The teams I've played with and the teammates I've played alongside. I can call those guys family and brothers. Here at Carolina, I played for four years and this is a second home for me. To see them and how well they're doing, with everyone growing up now and settling down and having families, it makes me proud to come from an institution like this one."
