BOSTON -- To understand why making the Boston Celtics’ roster would mean so much to Javonte Green, we should back up to a February evening in 2012 when Green first found out he was going to be a father.

Green, then a freshman, was wrapping up his first season at Radford University -- a 6-26 campaign in which Radford coach Mike Jones, who was also in his first year, allowed Green and his fellow freshmen to make (and learn from) mistakes.

In two previous contests against Virginia Military Institute, Green had poured in 15 and 23 points.

But that night, something was off. Green finished 1-for-6 from the field and scored just three points in a 55-53 loss. According to his aunt, Kim Mason, something else -- news that he would soon be a father to a little girl named Khloe Maree -- had stolen his attention.

“I think that was the day they told him,” Mason said. “I told him I wish they hadn’t, but if he had called me, I would have talked him down.”

If anyone could have talked Green down from his first-time parent nerves, Mason -- who Green introduces to friends as “Mama Kim” -- might have been the most likely candidate.

Seven years earlier, Green had asked his mother, Maxine Green, if he could live with his cousin in Lawrenceville. Maxine, a single mother of four, worked nights at a factory in Petersburg, Va. -- a town of roughly 35,000 with one of the highest crime rates in America per capita. Lawrenceville is 45 minutes south -- a tiny town with a population of just over 1,000. To get her son away from Petersburg, Maxine agreed.

So Green moved to the country with his family and remained in Mason’s care through high school. When Green missed his mother, Mason, a special education teacher at the local elementary school, called her to come to Lawrenceville, and once even offered to follow her back north to Petersburg when her car wasn’t working properly.

When Green joined the Brunswick High basketball team, which happened to be coached by 12-year NBA veteran Bryant Stith, Mason and her family attended his games. When Green needed to decide between basketball, baseball and football entering his senior year, Mason gently nudged him toward hoops. When Green finally got his first (and only) Division I offer to play basketball from Radford, Mason drove him there and ensured he was in a suit (the suit was Stith’s idea, and Mike Jones -- with a chuckle -- said seeing a prospect show up in one was a first). When Green’s games started circling around a bigger and bigger radius, Mason drove further and further to see the boy she considered another son.

“We burnt the road up,” Mason said.

And perhaps most importantly, when a nervous Green -- called “Woo” by friends and family after the noise he made when he cried as a baby -- approached Mason with the news he was about to be a 19-year-old father, Mason was the one who delivered the message every young soon-to-be parent needs to hear.

“Woo, I love you, and if that’s your child, I’m going to love your child just as much as I love you,” Mason told her nephew. “Of course. It’s family.”

From a few hours away, Green became an engaged and loving father, and he blossomed as a basketball player at Radford. The Highlanders used him as a four since he was strong enough to bang with bigger bodies and fast enough to punish bigger defenders and, after playing four sports in high school, Green was incredibly durable -- Jones said he never missed a practice at Radford in four years.

Meanwhile, Mason often made the three-and-a-half-hour trek to Radford to let Khloe see her father (and maybe more importantly, to let Khloe’s father see his baby). Once Mason drove up shortly after Khloe started walking, and when Khloe saw her father, she ran to him on shaky toddler legs.

“He said it brought tears to his eyes,” Mason said.

To help explain why an NBA roster spot would mean so much to Green, it might help to know about his first season overseas in Spain. The money wasn’t anything special, but he was paid to play basketball. The only problem: He was homesick for Khloe. For the first time in her young life, Christmas went by and Khloe wasn’t with Green.

“For me, that was unusual,” Green said. “If it wasn’t every weekend, it was every other weekend. … But after my first year overseas, it was like, ‘This is so hard.’ You have FaceTime, but the physical level is not there. It was very hard for me.”

While missing his daughter didn’t get easier, Green continued to hone his craft. In Spain, he was named league MVP. For the next two years, he played for Trieste -- a second-division squad in Italy. Green enjoyed Italy, and he appreciated how much effort Khloe’s mother put into helping ensure he could maintain contact.

“She makes it a lot, lot easier,” Green said. “It’s a huge shout out to her for being there, being a great friend as well.”

But the ache of missing events like Khloe’s first day at Pre-K was always present, and it only intensified his desire to return stateside.

In his second season at Trieste, Green learned he and Khloe’s mother would be parents for a second time -- another daughter named Kylie Marie.

Green wanted to be present for Kylie’s birth, but Trieste was entrenched in a race for the league’s No. 1 seed, and Kylie’s birth happened to fall on a week with a major rivalry game. Green and his agent, Duncan Lloyd, figured out flights that would get him home to see his new daughter, then back to Italy for the game, and Trieste gave Green the time off he needed (Trieste won the game and went on to win the championship that year).

Green appreciated Trieste’s flexibility, and while he missed Kylie’s birth, he got to see his second daughter in her youngest days.

But now he had two reasons to push for a state-side return.

“Know what you’re working for,” Mason reminded him. “You’re working so you can see those girls whenever you want to.”

To explain why an NBA roster spot would mean so much to Green, it might help to know about his daughters’ trip to Germany last year for Christmas, when Mason flew Khloe and Kylie eight hours overseas to see their father. The girls went sight-seeing and wore their father’s jersey to a Ratiopharm Ulm game.

At the time, Green was garnering attention from NBA teams interested in bringing him onto their Summer League rosters. He had developed into a hard-nosed, high-IQ wing who locked up opponents. In a league always looking for guard/wing stoppers, Green could seemingly carve out a role.

So Green accepted the Celtics’ offer after ensuring the team was serious about potentially bringing him aboard for the regular season. Mason and the girls traveled to Las Vegas and watched their father open eyes league-wide to his potential.

The summer following Summer League was a good one. Green shuffled back and forth between Virginia and Boston, working out with players he hopes will be his future teammates and spending time with his daughters at beaches, water parks and bounce houses. Khloe -- who is seven now -- attends the elementary school where Mason teaches, and Green surprised her in Mason’s classroom one day. Once again, when Khloe saw her father, she ran and jumped into his arms.

Kylie, meanwhile, will be two in March, and she’s beginning to put words together.

“The things she does, you’re still in awe,” Green said. “You understand what she wants and stuff like that without having to think about it. She can tell you. That’s a good thing for me as well, because not being there physically, we’re starting to get that bond.”

Green has a real battle for the final roster spot after Tacko Fall agreed to a two-way deal on Sunday. As the Boston Globe reported over the weekend, Green is competing with Max Strus -- a sweet shooting wing from DePaul who has impressed teammates and staffers in practice. Whichever player makes the roster is unlikely to get major minutes this season.

But for Green, a roster spot wouldn’t just be a roster spot.

“That’s always been the goal, ever since I started playing overseas,” Green said. “The motivation now is to be closer to (the girls). I’ve said that ever since the first year overseas. I have to make it back to be closer to them.”

Assuming her nephew makes the roster, Mason already has plans to make the five-hour trip from Lawrenceville to Philadelphia for the team’s opener on Oct. 23.

“I just feel like this is his time,” Mason said. “We pray, and I feel like the Lord is going to bless him.”