Without NBA, Gerald Green signs with B.C. Lokomotiv

Former NBA player Gerald Green has signed with Lokomotiv Kuban, a club in Russia.

The high-flying 6-8 forward, who has played for the Boston Celtics, Minnesota, Houston and Dallas, has been without a basketball team since the start of the NBA season.

Green, who was selected 18th overall in the 2005 NBA draft, is talented, gifted, can jump out of the gym, and just 23 years old, but he bounced around the NBA because of his maturity and work ethic.

He played for four teams in his first five years, never a good sign when coupled with the words “potential.”

“He has to mature,” Doc Rivers said, Green’s coach in Boston for two years. “Before you can take the next step, you have to understand you need the work and you need to do the work. Gerald does it, just not as consistently as coaches would like him to do.”

From Boston, Green spent only a month in Minnesota, when the Timberwolves decided not to exercise his fourth year.

“(Green) frustrated Randy quite a bit.” Rivers said about Minnesota’s coach Randy Wittman at that time. “The difference between Randy and me was that Randy didn’t feel the need to play him. We played him anyway.”

Green’s fourth year in the league, he played just four minutes in one game for the Houston Rockets before being waived. Green then spent a forgettable season in Dallas last year, playing in juts 38 games then being released.

Without any bites in the NBA, the former NBA Slam Dunk Champion now finds himself in Europe in an extremely different culture. Will being in Russia change Gerald Green’s path? B.C. Lokomotiv Kuban is about to find out.