Mavs' Rookie Report: Green Continues to Improve

As the season progresses, Dallas Mavericks rookie first-round pick Josh Green continues to improve, while others wait for their breakout moment.

The last rookie report highlighted some of the flashes shown by Josh Green in extremely limited minutes (30 over his first four games). Since then, Josh Green is averaging 20 minutes per game. In those eight games, he’s averaging 3.6 points per game, one assist per game, four rebounds per game, and 0.5 steals per game on a 41/9/50 split.

Offensively, Green still needs to make progress in finding his spot. Versus Indiana, he found many openings against the Pacers’ box and-1 scheme that they played on Luka Doncic, which allowed him to go for eight points on 4-7 shooting.

 However, his three-point shooting needs to develop further in order to take a step forward and earn consistent minutes. In his last three games, Green is shooting 1-11 from three. Green shot 36% from three at Arizona, so the NBA three-point percentage shouldn’t stay this low for a long time.

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Josh Green had some nice passes last night, but only one assist (shown below). My favorite thing about this is that in the modern NBA offensive rebounding is pretty rare off jump shots. He's the only one going for the OREB and wins it, and it turns into points #MFFL pic.twitter.com/Q0J0XOiApO

— Rich Stayman (@MavsDraft) January 23, 2021

The most noticeable aspect in Green’s game since earning routine minutes is his defense and energy on the glass. His rotations have minimized back-cuts, open threes, and overall made offensive players fight harder to get to their spots. These factors have all contributed to Green’s off-ball defense prowess, which was also a strength at Arizona.

Watch Josh Green on this defensive possession:
Forces DeRozan to make a tough pass out of a failed drive on his first attempt, shuts down his retry, pokes his hand into Poeltl grabbing the loose ball, and gets the rebound. #MFFL

Credit to @Torben41 for the video pic.twitter.com/9E4NkqhWTG

— Rich Stayman (@MavsDraft) January 23, 2021

With Wes Iwundu splitting minutes sporadically with Josh Green, Green’s consistency in playing time is still difficult to come by. For example, after playing 20 minutes against Houston on Saturday, Green received a DNP-CD Monday against Denver, while Iwundu played 15 minutes, as well as James Johnson playing 31 minutes. However, when Green is on the court, the defensive impact is noticeable.

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With Josh Richardson returning tonight, Green’s minutes may come at even more of a premium in the coming weeks.

As for the other rookies, there hasn’t been much, if any, meaningful playing time. Tyler Bey, Tyrell Terry, and Nate Hinton all played in the fourth quarter of the Rockets game in a blowout. For the time being, they are not in the rotation, but Tyrell Terry has gotten the most run closest to meaningful basketball. 

With Tyrell Terry possessing the most needed skill that Dallas is missing in his three-point shooting, he is the most likely rookie to earn new minutes, even as the team returns to full health.