But he could not turn any of that into sustained success, and his potential slowly began to fizzle. Green was traded twice and released once, and before he knew it he was in Russia by himself, struggling to read menus in restaurants while living as a kind of basketball nomad.

Just a few years earlier, possibilities seemed endless. Green had been selected out of high school by the Celtics with the 18th overall pick of the 2005 draft. He’d won the slam dunk contest in just his second season. He was an athletic marvel.

Gerald Green still remembers the cold nights in Russia, huddled in his apartment with a bowl of borscht soup, wondering where things had gone wrong. Basketball had always been his path, and now it had somehow taken him away from his family, away from his home, and away from the NBA.


This past week the Houston native smiled and shook his head as he remembered those days. He said that if he had not gone overseas he would not be in the NBA today at the age of 30, back with the Celtics for a second turn.

He said he needed that reality check to learn about hard work, to learn that not everything comes easily, even though when he was a teenager it had always seemed that it would.

“I didn’t want to be [overseas] anymore . . . I wanted to be an NBA player,” Green said. “It was something I had to change for myself. I always used to sit here and point the finger at what everyone else was doing. At that point, I just told myself, ‘What could I do to change? What could I do to change myself?’ ”

Former Celtics forward Brian Scalabrine remembers when Green joined the team as a rookie in 2005. He saw the freakish athleticism that everyone else did, but he was also wary.


“I was really hard on him and I told him, ‘Look, I don’t care how athletic you are,’ ” Scalabrine said. “In this league, if you’re not smart, if you don’t treat this like a business and be professional, it’s going to be very hard to make it. I told him he had a chance, but he had to work.”

The Celtics won just 33 games during Green’s rookie season and 24 the following year. In the summer of 2007, he was traded to the Timberwolves as part of the deal that brought Kevin Garnett to Boston. Today, Green says he harbored no bad feelings over being shipped out by the Celtics. He said with a smile that he would have traded himself for Garnett, too.

But he admits that it stung to see the Celtics win an NBA title less than a year after he departed.

Midway through the 2007-08 season he was traded from the Timberwolves to the Rockets, then released just two weeks later. After one uneventful year with the Mavericks, Green was without an NBA home.

So he spent the next two seasons playing in Russia before starting the 2010-11 season in the Chinese Basketball Association. He had some big offensive games in a league that is not known for defense, and he parlayed it into a 10-day contract with the Nets.

“And I haven’t looked back since,” Green said.

Green won the dunk contest in his second season. Gabriel Bouys/AFP/Getty Images/File 2007

After playing for the Nets and the Pacers, Green had his two best pro seasons with the Suns. In 2013-14, he averaged 15.8 points per game and made 40 percent of his 3-pointers while playing in all 82 games.


The following year he averaged 11.9 points per game. He was teammates with Isaiah Thomas for half of that season before Thomas was traded to the Celtics, and the two developed a strong bond that ultimately helped Boston land Green this summer.

Green said he thrived in Phoenix in part because of the frenetic style. He recalled practice drills in which the team would try to shoot before seven seconds had passed, and they carried that urgency into games. Green loved it.

Last summer, though, he signed a one-year deal with the Heat and took a slight step back, making just 39.2 percent of his field goal attempts and averaging 8.9 points per game. He said the slowed pace and the tendency to get the ball to the team’s stars did not suit him as well. His time in Miami was most known for a bizarre incident in which he was hospitalized after collapsing in a parking lot and then punching a man who was trying to help him. He was suspended two games for conduct detrimental to the team, though no charges were pressed.

This summer, Celtics president of basketball operations Danny Ainge expressed cursory interest in signing Green. Green called Thomas.

“[Thomas] was like, ‘Man, you need to come here.’ ” Green said.


Green agreed to a one-year deal for the veteran’s minimum of about $1.4 million, a low-risk move by Boston.

The Celtics are counting on Green for bursts off the bench, with his ability to catch fire from 3-point range and his athleticism, which Green insists has not abandoned him despite the wear on his tires.

“We needed someone like him,” Thomas said. “A guy that can shoot the ball, a guy that can space the floor. And he’s just an instant scorer. Whether he starts, whether he comes off the bench, that’s what he’s going to do.”

Scalabrine said that because he started his career so early, Green has had time to overcome missteps and find redemption before it is too late.

“Older guys don’t always get second, third, fourth chances,” Scalabrine said. “I’m really glad it worked out for him, because I think he can help this team if he’s right. He can win two or three games a year just with his energy and by making shots. And if anybody can maximize his talent, it’s Brad [Stevens]. Brad will find the best way.”

For Green, it is a happy homecoming. His two young sons live in Dracut and he still speaks fondly about this region. Those who were around the franchise during Green’s first tour said he is noticeably different now. He is more outgoing, more mature, as can be expected when you’re not a teenager anymore.

“When I came out of high school, I was a little kid,” Green said. “I didn’t understand the business. Once I went overseas and had this real motivation to get back, I was willing to do whatever it took to stick in this league, and that’s what I did.”


Adam Himmelsbach can be reached at adam.himmelsbach@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @adamhimmelsbach.