Gerald Green had a memorable stint in the NBA. He entered the league in 2005 when he was drafted by the Boston Celtics. Within 2 years, Green became a fairly popular figure, thanks to his incredible dunking ability. In fact, he even won the 2007 NBA Dunk Contest at All-Star weekend, beating out Dwight Howard and Nate Robinson.
But Green's dunking ability is surprising, given the injury he sustained as a kid. Gerald Green lost his finger as a kid while playing with his brother. As a kid, Green wore his mother's ring to pretend like it was an NBA championship ring.
He and his brother set up a hoop on top of a door. The two were competing to see who could reach higher. On one attempt, Green would get the ring and his finger stuck on the door's nail. As a result, amputation was deemed necessary, and Green lost his ring finger (21:21 mark).
“I was never dunking. I had, it was like a nail on top of a door ledge at my house. I had my mom’s class ring on, and I used to like, run and jump, see how high I can touch on top of the door. And I was challenging my brother saying you can’t jump as high as me… I was jumping and that’s what happened. The ring caught the nail, was sticking out, it got caught in the ring and yanked my finger off.”
Green also explained how the injury has affected his basketball career, and how it has had more of a mental impact on him than a physical one. Rather than affecting his game, the amputation caused him to be very insecure about his hands.
“It used to affect me, used to affect my mental. I was embarrassed about it… I ain’t really got comfortable talking about my finger until I was 30… I was always real insecure about it.”
Green went on to overcome the amputation, and become a basketball player in the NBA. He had a 12-year stint in the NBA, where he was on some very good teams. Perhaps the team he had the best stint on was with the Houston Rockets in 2018. He believes that the Rockets would have won the NBA championship if Chris Paul didn't get hurt in the Western Conference Finals.
Green's dunking ability was truly astonishing. What makes it even more astonishing was the fact that he did it without 10 complete fingers. But he can take pride that he was a better dunker than most despite the injury, and overcame a massive hurdle to become an NBA player.
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