The Danny Green All-Stars... FEAT. Danny Green
A little over 30% of 2nd round picks exceed the average NBA career expectancy, and only 3.5 players from every 2nd round draft class make it to 10 years. The odds are stacked against these players.
Entire Conversation with Danny about Team Over The Top All-Stars!
This type of exercise has been done a few times before; it isn’t unique.
The iconic Zach Lowe wrote an annual piece highlighting players who exceeded their role’s expectations, titled “The Luke Walton All-Stars". Lowe’s version drew inspiration from Michael Lewis's 2009 profile of Shane Battier, "The No-Stats All-Star." In it, Lewis highlighted Battier's willingness to embrace data (cutting-edge for a player at the time) and his hunger to do the little things for the sake of winning above all else, such as requesting to come off the bench to align his minutes with Manu Ginobili, San Antonio’s most dangerous scorer, whom he was tasked with guarding.
The core concept of these explorations is to highlight players who contribute to the team in ways that don’t always show up in raw counting stats. Lowe and Lewis highlighted players displaying a “we above me” mentality that enhanced everything around the team.
While The Danny Green All-Stars draws inspiration from both previous iterations, it differs in that it is divided into two teams, each representing one of the two distinct thresholds Danny conquered in his NBA journey:
Sticking—Team Stick members represent a group that has established that they will become 10-year veterans despite the odds.
Championship Contributions—Team Over the Top members put winning above everything else, and those contributions take teams from good → champions.
Guys who make it to the NBA are usually the best players on every team they’ve been on. When that’s been your basketball life, there aren’t a lot of opportunities to experience adversity.
Players can lose their way when they start piling up DNP-CDs and assignments to the G-League. The wrong people can get in a player’s ear and tell them it’s not their fault or the coach doesn’t know what he’s doing, which is usually followed by that same person pitching the player to do something that’s in their best interest, not the players'.
Some players listen to those outside influences; they take on a woe-is-me attitude and don’t put the extra work in on their game. Instead, they go out on the town more and get enamored with the “benefits” of being an NBA player. When you’re young with idle time, money, and bad influences in your ear, it’s easy to fall into the trap of instant gratification over delayed gratification.
Danny’s career started anything but smoothly; he faced numerous opportunities to fall into the traps many before him had succumbed to. After being selected by Cleveland in the second round, his rookie year included 62 DNPs before he was released. San Antonio picked him up for his second year, and he played in eight NBA games and 17 G-League games. As he entered his third year, he stared down the barrel of a lockout season without a contract, so he went to Ljubljana, Slovenia, where he competed in the EuroLeague and Adriatic League before returning to fight for a position in San Antonio, ultimately breaking through as a starter midway through that season.
This is the resiliency and tenacity you must have to make it in this league when faced with adversity.
Danny Green is the ultimate embodiment of controlling what you can control, always trying to get 1% each day and making sure that when opportunity knocks, you’re ready to answer. If you’re going to make it in their league when the odds are stacked against you, you must do this first and foremost.
I used to tell NBA clients outside of team rotations, looking in, about Danny’s story. The hardest thing about this position is that the guys in front of you know how hard it is to get where you want to be. They will fight to hold on to what they have tooth and nail. You are going to have to rip it from their cold, lifeless hands, and then you’re going to have to fight off waves of younger guys trying to rip that same status from you.
Danny was built to do both.
Team Stick:
Kris Dunn
Honestly, we are one year late on Dunn's inclusion on Team Stick; he’s most likely somewhere between Stick and Over The Top. But since this is the first year of the DG All-Stars, it only feels right to highlight a man who successfully returned from the brink of career death like a phoenix.
Situations and roles are more critical in the NBA than anything concerning sticking. When you’ve been picked in the Top five as a point guard, like Dunn was, the role you’re expected to slot into is a high-usage PnR ball handler who can score and distribute efficiently.
But no matter how much Dunn tried to play this role, it wasn’t him. So, he was cast out of the league as a bust. His road to redemption through the G-League in Washington, scrapping and clawing on 10 days in Portland, then Utah, and finally breaking through last year under Will Hardy as anon-ball demon is like the story of the Hippo.
Dunn makes life hell on the defensive end for the best perimeter player on every team the Clippers face. He supplements on the offensive end with clever cutting, sound decision-making, and enough self-awareness to know where he stands in the pecking order.
Now he’s back on track to a 10-year-plus career, and it makes everyone who plays with him happy as a hippo that he’s on their team.
Luke Kornet
I remember the first time I saw Luke Kornet; he was in a Chipotle in Vegas getting a bowl during the summer league. At the time, he was being represented by a friend, and I talked to him about his experience while we waited for our Vegas-inflated fast-casual masterpieces.
What Luke Kornet thought he needed to do to make it in the league during that 2018 conversation versus what he’s done to make it couldn’t be more night and day. He was going to be a stretch big, someone who would space the floor, be a pick-and-pop threat, and allow guards more space to operate downhill…
Since then, Kornet has evolved into someone who operates closer to the basket. He understands screening angles better than almost any other big (a mathematics degree from a prestigious university might help) and can think outside the box.
This chart is from over at the F5 Substack. He put out so much fun stuff on Kornet this past week that I will link at the bottom of this section.
Kornet’s evolution from playing outside → in to inside → out has also opened his PnR passing. Because he plays with such talented players who often bring two players to the ball, Kornet’s intelligence of reading the court and making quick decisions has flourished in PnR 4v3 actions—highlighted by his 5.3:1 assist to turnover ratio in PnR actions!!
He also might be the first player in NBA history to have a signature move be a contest of a shot…
Ty Jerome
This is Ty Jerome’s sixth year in the league and his fourth team. Before this year, he’d never had a season where he played over 48 games. Between the injury bug, roster crunch situations, or just not performing up to the level he’d yet to stick, this year felt like it could have been now or never for Jerome.
At the time of this writing, Jerome is ninth in the league in points per direct (1.103) PnR. This rare air is usually reserved for All-Stars and All-NBA-level primary ball handlers, not journeyman off-the-bench types.
He’s flirting with even rarer air when it comes to shooting efficiency. A 50/40/90 season is the holy grail, and Jerome slashes at 51/42/87. With his back against the wall, Jerome has responded with force and cemented himself as a quality player in the league.
If you want to know what irrational confidence looks like, look no further than Jerome’s conversation with Paolo Banchero.
Toumani Camara
Though being quite close to making it to Team Over the Top, Blazers’ lockdown forward Toumani Camara will have to settle for being one of the best individual defenders in the league—no big deal.
Camara, selected 52nd overall by the Suns before being traded in the Deandre Ayton deal, has quickly become an absolute monster on defense, utilizing his 6-foot-7 frame and 7-foot-1 wingspan to his advantage on nearly every possession. Almost every advanced metric loves the guy; he ranks in the 84th percentile for defensive EPM, is in the 96th percentile for defensive xRAPM, and has the third-highest defensive DPM out of any NBA sophomore (just behind Wembanyama and Lively).
He does an incredible job of staying in front of defenders on the drive, though he sometimes initiates a bit too much contact. When he doesn’t get called for the foul, though, he forces opponents to take tough shots, like Cade’s in the clip below.
Despite being on what you would most likely call a rebuilding team, Camara has made the most of his situation and has become pretty well-rounded on the offensive end. He’s shooting 37% from three and scores more points per 100 shot attempts than the average player at his position, per Cleaning The Glass, despite ranking in the bottom quartile for usage rate. In other words, the Blazers don’t involve him in many possessions directly, but he’s making an impact via everything else he does – so good they can’t ignore him.
Dyson Daniels
Players drafted in the lottery must go through a Kris Dunn-level exile before they’re considered more likely to be out of the league than make it to being a 10-year vet. Daniels felt like he was walking that path before David Griffin shipped him to Atlanta this summer.
Situation and role are two of the most significant factors when sticking in the league. While Daniels's draft position came with considerable money, it also came with unreal expectations about what type of player he was expected to be.
Being selected 8th overall by New Orleans with the expectations of being the point guard of the future pencils you into the same general archetype Kris Dunn found himself in during his Chicago days: a volume PnR player who can score and distribute for others.
With Daniels's game, this role might have been like trying to put a square peg in a round hole; it just didn’t fit. But in Atlanta, Daniels is free of the expectations of his draft position. It must feel like a weight has been lifted off his shoulders. He’s been unleashed to do precisely what he does best: create havoc!
He’s first in the league in steals at 3.1 per game, with 393 total deflections, and direct touches defended per game at 32.7.
He’s not only guarding the best perimeter player from every team, but he’s also generating the most havoc on the court. No possession is safe when Daniels is on the court, whether defending on the ball or off.
DG 25/26 Team Stick Watchlist:
Champagnie Twins, Moussa Diabate, Nick Smith Jr., AJ Green, Collin Gillespie, and Jalen Pickett.
Team Over The Top:
Isaiah Hartenstein
2024/25 Season Averages:
Counting Stats: 11/11/4 in 28 minutes per game.
Shooting Splits: 57/0/67
Fun Advanced Stat: 17.9 Assist Percentage (86th percentile)
Alex Caruso
2024/25 Season Averages:
Counting Stats: 7/3/2.5 in 19 minutes per game.
Shooting Splits: 44/35/79
Fun Advanced Stat: 2.2 Stocks Per Game
Payton Pritchard
2024/25 Season Averages:
Counting Stats: 14.2/3.7/3.4 in 28 minutes per game.
Shooting Splits: 47/42/84
Fun Advanced Stat: 74% of his shots are three point attempts (7.9 3PA Per Game)
Dorian Finney Smith
2024/25 Season Averages:
Counting Stats: 8.3/3.9/1.4 in 28 minutes per game.
Shooting Splits: 44/39/63
Fun Advanced Stat: 96th percentile estimated defensive +/- (per Dunks and Threes)
OG Anunoby
2024/25 Season Averages:
Counting Stats: 17/5/2 in 36 minutes per game.
Shooting Splits: 46/37/80
Fun Advanced Stat: 83% of his baskets are assisted. 580 Total Closeouts (98th Percentile)
In honor of the DG All-Stars, Marize has passed her signature sign-off to her brother from another mother… GIZMO GREEN!!!
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Didn’t know that about Danny Green’s early years as a pro. Super impressive how he kept working and getting better. Later in his career, if the ball got swung or kicked to him in the corner, I swear, it seemed like it was always going in.
Good