Ex-Hills Hornets Junior Josh Green Shoots for Olympic Glory
Former Hills Hornets junior Joshua Benjamin Green has certainly come a long way since impressing his coaches with his prodigious talent.
The 196cm (six foot five inch) tall basketballer will be representing Australia at the Paris Olympics which opens this week, having been selected by highly-experienced coach Brian Goorjian.
Josh’s amazing court skills have already been showcased at the Olympic level, being one of the special team who won Australia’s first Olympic bronze medal at the 2020 Tokyo Games.
Joshua, the son of successful basketballers, Cahla and American-born Delmas, grew up in Castle Hill and excelled in as many as nine sports including athletics, AFL, basketball, football, rugby and swimming. He represented Cherrybrook Athletics as a junior.
Josh loved footy and could have pursued a career in the AFL with both the Sydney Swans and Greater Western Sydney Giants keen to sign him for their junior development programs. In fact, he accepted an offer to join the Giants’ academy when he was 13.
However, his phenomenal court skills were already catching the eye of basketball talent scouts. After captaining NSW under-12 Metro team to win the Australian title, he was soon playing club basketball for Penrith, going on to represent NSW’s under-14 and under-16 teams.
The turning point in Josh’s life came parents moved to the Pheonix, Arizona, in late 2014, cutting short his various sporting careers in NSW and Australia – including the GWS Giants – but setting the stage for his NBL and national pathways.
The shooting guard played college basketball for the Arizona Wildcats and later signed for Dallas Mavericks who made it to the NBA finals. He is currently playing for the Charlotte Hornets. He skippered the IMG Academy to the national championship in his final high school game and was also named MVP.
In 2020, he was snapped by Dallas Mavericks for a four-year rookie contract worth US$13.6 million (A$20.34 million) before signing a highly-lucrative US$41 million (A$61 million) deal with the same club in 2023.
After being traded by the Mavericks to the Hornets, Josh told reporters: “It’s such a young team and they play at a fast pace,” Green said, “and I think I’m able to thrive in transition, being able to pick up the ball and play defence and just continue to grow my game.
I’m still a young guy and it gets fun to be around older guys in Dallas and learn from them, and take that to Charlotte and just come in with a winning mindset, and, yeah, be ready to go.”
In the Olympics, Australia take on Spain in their opening Group A match on July 27, with other games against Canada (July 30), and Greece (August 2).
