Tracking the Preaux Career of Orien Greene

I was shocked too! I definitely thought Tiras would go before Orien.....and then Tiras didn't even get picked. I wonder what happened? A lot of mock drafts had Tiras on the fringe and Orien wasn't even in the picture.


He is the first Cajun drafted since 1991!!!

I got this info from Mr. Jay Walker a couple years ago:

"the last Cajun with an NBA pedigree was Kevin Brooks (1987-91). Brooks
is fourth on the all time Cajun scoring list with over 2000 points. A 6-8
small forward with a great outside shot, Brooks played three years with
the Denver Nuggets."

Orien can shut someone down with his defense and Tiras can score but they must have seen somethig that they didn't like about him.

I think Orien got drafted because he's got better overall NBA potential. Tiras is a great scorer, but he's a terrible ball handler and he lacks on the defensive side. He's great from the charity stripe and is a fairly consistent shooter, but when you pick him that's what you're getting and that's all he'd end up ever being. He would have been a GREAT fit for a team like the Mavs or Suns, though, where the focus isn't necessarily on defense but on scoring. I really hope he ends up on one of those teams and proves me wrong and becomes an all-star.

Orien Greene, on the other hand, is a great defensive player, he can distribute the ball, has a good mid-range shot, can shoot the 3, and penetrates very well. He's generally a very unselfish player and that's very important. He's can be a bit streaky shooting, but under the right coaching - which I think Doc Rivers is - he can be molded into a solid NBA player.

I just went to espn.com to see what they had to say about Orien Greene. Not much, to say the least, but I noticed they had him listed that he attended Lafayette. Someone who does not know better can easily take that as Lafayette University. I sent an e-mail to espn concerning this but I am not sure if I sent it to the right place as it was not sent to a specfic author but to customer service. If anyone knows the best way to contact them please reply back. I also suggest that many of you send your own e-mails to espn with your on concerns. I am very proud of my university and when I go to espn and look for the name of my alma mater and see Lafayette this ~~~~es me off.

I'm not surprised at all by the news.

In my opinion Greene was one of the best athletes that UL has had in a long time. I absolutely loved watching him do the impossible on the defensive side of the ball. It was pure magic! But because his strengths were in defense so he never got the same publicity that an offensive player (like Wade) got.

I would put Wade behind Greene, Mitchell, and Hamilton in athleticism. Wade's biggest strength was that he was an excellent shooter. That’s about it.

The NBA scouts were able to see this.

<! How many of you forgot OG broke his leg during the season last year ><blockquote><p align=justify>#5# Orien Greene was a revered figure in Florida in his younger days, but he didn't act like it when he went to Tampa in the spring to prepare for life in the NBA.

Greene's eagerness to improve his game helped make the former Louisiana Ragin' Cajun standout a second-round choice of the Boston Celtics (No. 53 overall) in Tuesday night's NBA Draft in New York City.

"It was an interesting situation," said David B. Thorpe, the Executive Director of the Five Star Training Center in Tampa. "Orien is a legendary prep figure in the state of Florida, and I didn't know if he would come in here thinking he was bigger than us, or come in and try to get much better.

"But he was totally willing to learn from Day One."

Greene had two workouts with the Celtics, cementing their interest with his second performance after Thorpe and his camp altered Greene's offensive game.

"He really shot it in the second workout," Thorpe said. "He was able to dominate some good players. And, from that workout, we felt he would go to Boston. In fact, I think his agent told other teams not to pick Orien unless they could guarantee something because we felt certain Boston would pick him.

"When he came to us, we told Orien we have to change your shot. I needed six months but I had six days. The first thing we did was work on his shot from long-range. A close second was his mid-range game.

"We worked on stepping back, and on his pull-up jumper. We wanted him to get back to being a great athlete, and he said the other day that he's jumping higher than he ever has before."

<center><p><a href="http://www.theadvertiser.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050629/SPORTS/506290347/1006">The rest of the story</a>

Bruce Brown
bbrown@theadvertiser.com <!--

Greene has also added six pounds of muscle since leaving the Cajun program, and according to Thorpe "looks like a football player now. In fact, his parents haven't been here the whole time, and they came today and were shocked by what they saw."

"Orien Greene has always been very special to our program," UL coach Robert Lee said. "He's very gifted. We're very, very excited for him and for our program that he was picked in the second round, and I think he'll eventually be a very good NBA player.

"The fact that he has trained hard doesn't surprise me at all. Since he left school, he's changed his jump shot. He's shooting the ball a whole different way. He has put in the work, and he truly deserves this."

Greene's concentrated work on offense made sense after being named the Defensive Player of the Year in the Sun Belt Conference for the 2004-2005 season.

The 6-foot-4 standout overcame a broken leg to help Lee's Cajuns to a second straight Sun Belt Conference championship and NCAA Tournament berth. In that injury-shortened senior campaign, Greene averaged 11.4 points and 4.6 rebounds per game while registering 68 steals in 25 games.

"Nobody really understands how talented Orien is," Lee said. "Last year, because of the injury, people didn't really see the real Orien Greene. So it's good to see that the professional teams understand what kind of a player he can be."

Greene played his first two years at Florida before transferring to UL and helping the Cajuns to the 2003-2004 Sun Belt title. He repeated that feat last season, and now is ready to further elevate his game in the NBA.
-->

This is awesome. Orien this year and maybe Mitchell and/or Cameron next year. Could be the start of something big. Hope Greene does well in Boston and battles for some good PT. Never really liked the Celtics but now I guess I have to watch them.

<blockquote><p align=justify>WALTHAM -- By the time the Celtics took Orien Greene as the 53d pick in the NBA Draft last night, there was no champagne popping at the Celtics training facility. The draft party had long departed, most leaving after Boston's first-round pick earlier in the evening.

But fanfare or not, executive director of basketball operations Danny Ainge said adding Greene to the team is just what the Celtics wanted.

''I don't know if we could have drawn [the draft] up any better," Ainge said. ''Greene was a terrific high school player. I saw him play in the NCAA Tournament last year for the first time and just really liked what I saw."

The 6-foot-4-inch, 208-pound point guard out of Louisiana-Lafayette played in 25 games and averaged 11.4 points and 4.6 rebounds for the Ragin' Cajuns last year.

<center><p><a href="http://www.boston.com/sports/basketball/celtics/articles/2005/06/29/ainge_quick_to_praise_greene/">The rest of the story</a>

By Kelsie Smith
Boston Globe Correspondent <!--

A native of Gainesville, Fla., Greene was named the state's ''Mr. Basketball" his senior year after leading Gainesville High to consecutive state titles.

His college career started in 2000 at Florida, where he played in every game his freshman year.

He transferred to Lafayette after his sophomore year, forcing him to sit out the 2002-03 season. A quick player, Greene tallied 68 steals last season, which ended in a first-round NCAA Tournament loss to Louisville.

Ainge said Greene's physical talents and size will bring a new element to the Celtics' roster. One of Greene's biggest draws is his ball-handling skills, Ainge said.

Greene was far from a sure thing in this year's draft, partly because injuries throughout his college career stymied his potential, Ainge said. He worked out for the Celtics twice last week.

''He played very, very well. He held his own," he said. ''We think with his physical talents, and playing point guard in college, he's just a different player with a lot of potential for us."
-->

Stupid espn.com has O listed coming from Lafayette! :mad: On thier list of players by school, well........you guessed it!

More reason to pull for the Celtics again. I am not a Boston sports fan. People dislike New York Teams, I dislike Boston Sports teams except the Celtics because of Red Aurebach( is that how you spell it). He was a great coach and great coaches deserve respect.