NBA: Predicting a 2021 breakout player for every team in the Western Conference

Dallas Mavericks

Josh Green

There is plenty of opportunity for Dallas Mavericks players to ride the coattails of Luka Doncic’s wizardry and produce big offensive numbers, as was the case last year with Seth Curry. Rookie Josh Green should do just that this season while providing some much-needed wing defense for Dallas.

The rookie from Arizona is a rangy 6-foot 6 with a 6-foot-10 wingspan, an ideal model for the modern 3-and-D type player. While he was at Arizona, Green showed elite level athleticism as well as savy playmaking abilities, which ought to get Mavs fans excited. On defense, Green graded out as a top on-ball defender, with a real instinctual understanding of defensive rotations and spacing. This is a welcoming sight for a Mavs team that seemed to view defense as optional at times last year.

Obviously, the NBA game is quite different than college and he’ll need time to adjust, but once that happens I expect Josh Green to be a high impact player off the bench with his solid playmaking abilities. And if he can nail those catch-and-shoot 3’s generated from Luka, Green projects to be a quality starting shooting guard in this league for years to come.