From Kevin Garnett to Kyle Lowry and even top 2023 draft prospect Scoot Henderson — Joe Abunassar has worked with and helped develop NBA players for 25 years.

But Abunassar, founder of Impact Basketball and a pioneer in player development in the NBA, is at the point of his career now where he doesn’t just train anyone.

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“I’m at a stage where I don’t like to work with a lot of guys that I don’t enjoy working with,” he told foxsports.com.au.

There’s a reason that he’s always made time for Josh Green over the past four years though, including the “big summer” that the Australian credits for his transformation this season.

Even from the first time Abunassar met Green, then a 19-year-old draft hopeful, the veteran trainer saw enough in the Sydney native to suggest he could be “something special”.

“The thing that struck me about Josh is, one — he’s a super kid, really good person and he works his arse off,” Abunassar said.

“That in itself drew me to him and wanting to help him. He has an incredible work ethic and then you put on top of that his very unique power and athleticism and speed.

“… My first time working with him, that’s what really struck me — he’s a really good kid who’s got some really unteachable skills, he’s so fast and so powerful and just amazing body control and athleticism. Once he honed his skills, I knew he could be something special.”

But at the end of the Western Conference finals last year Green, who Dallas drafted in 2020 with the 18th overall pick, found himself out of the rotation and at a crossroads.

The 21-year-old played just 17 minutes across the five games against Golden State, too hesitant in offence or as Green himself put it — playing “hot potato” with the basketball.

It made it hard to justify giving him significant minutes in the pressure cooker that is playoffs basketball, even if Green was still bringing his typical high energy on the defensive end.

“Coach Jason Kidd empowered him to be OK with making mistakes during his second season last year, but it was clear Josh still didn’t trust his shot and his skills and would play what he called ‘hot potato’ with the ball whenever he had possession,” Callie Caplan told foxsports.com.au.

“He couldn’t wait to get rid of it and not mess up.”

Caplan covers the Mavericks for Dallas Morning News and has had a front-row seat to Green’s transformation, which was already generating plenty of buzz in the preseason.

But generating buzz is one thing. Living up to it is another challenge entirely.

Although Caplan said there was already a “sign” Green was in a position to do just that during the first week of training camp.

“My first sign that Josh’s improvement was legit, and not just talk from the coaches wanting to boost his confidence, came during their open practice during the first week of training camp,” she said.

“During that September 30 workout, Josh was everywhere — hitting threes, bringing the ball up in transition, finishing at the rim, looking active on defence.

“That’s when I started to realise how much his work in the summer set him up for a transformational third season.”

Which again brings us back to Impact Basketball, described by Abunassar as “a one-stop shop for basketball players who are trying to improve”.

Abunassar reckons the program has put “about” 300 players into the NBA over the past 25 years, from Garnett and Chauncey Billups to more recent prospects like Tyrese Haliburton and Ziaire Williams.

Getting into the NBA is just the first step. After that, it’s all about making an impact.

And for a player like Green, a coronavirus-impacted rookie season and lack of rotation minutes in the 2021-22 playoffs left him needing to find a way to take that next step last summer. That’s where Abunassar came in.

“I love players like Josh that are really kind of at the crossroads of their career and really need to grow up into the game,” Abunassar said.

“To make themselves a name in the league.”

Now Green is doing just that, with Dallas coach Jason Kidd declaring in December that he has “all the talents” to be a “superstar” and that all his hard work would pay off — literally.

“He’s going to make a lot of money,” Kidd said.

It’s been quite the turnaround for Green and it all started with one phone call last year, just a day after his Mavericks had been eliminated from the NBA playoffs.

‘AT A DIFFERENT LEVEL’: INSIDE GREEN’S TWO-MONTH TRANSFORMATION

Abunassar often jokes with Green that he speaks more with him than either of his sons.

“So him calling me every day isn’t an issue,” the renowned trainer laughs.

Ever since Abunassar first starting work with Green, he took the time to get to know him — both on and off the court, spending time with the Australian’s mother and sister when they visited Dallas last month.

There is a level of comfort and trust there. So in one of the lowest points of his young career, when Green found himself out of the rotation and in need of advice, he knew who to call.

“He did not have a great playoffs run in the sense that he lost his minutes and so many players when that happens, they point the finger,” Abunassar said.

“But what Josh did is he called me the day after or maybe the night of and said, ‘I’ve got to get better’. He said, ‘I have to have a big summer. I have to get better’.

“And of course, somebody like myself, who sometimes fights with players to understand that, was extremely pleased to hear that. It spoke to his focus.”

A focus to always get better, even if it meant early morning wake-ups and “two-straight months of just incredible commitment”, as Abunassar put it.

So about a week after the postseason ended, Green moved to Las Vegas and linked up again with Abunassar, who had clear instructions from the Mavericks on what to work on.

“They needed Josh to shoot the ball better, they needed him handling the ball better and they needed him to finish better,” Abunassar said.

Green also understood the gravity of what this, his third year in the league, meant in determining the trajectory of his career moving forward. It wasn’t so much that he had anything to prove to anybody though.

“I always knew who I was as a player,” Green told foxsports.com.au.

“It was more of just when the opportunity was going to happen.”

And with Jalen Brunson off to the New York Knicks, that opportunity had presented itself and left Dallas without a clear secondary ball-handler to ease the pressure on Luka Doncic.

“I knew that there was going to be [an] opportunity with Jalen not coming back, and as much as that sucked, I just had to make sure that I was ready,” Green added.

“I mean it’s my third year, so I was like, ‘I’ve adjusted to the NBA. I feel confident, ready to go, it feels normal. So now it’s time to go to work and have full confidence in myself.

“… I also knew that if anything, I wanted to prove [to] myself how much work I can put into myself, and really benefit from it. So, going into the off-season, I came out with a strict plan. “It was a tough off-season for sure, but it was also a lot of fun. It showed me how much I really love playing basketball and being around basketball to be honest.”

A TYPICAL DAY FOR GREEN AT IMPACT BASKETBALL

9am-10.30am: Stretch, get treatment, skill work

10.30am-12.30pm: Lifting weights, gym work

12.30pm-2pm: Games of 5-on-5 basketball

2pm-6pm: Free time

6pm-7pm: Evening activities (such as boxing or pilates)

Green was also able to lock in his nutrition as well as strength and conditioning, taking his bodyweight down from 99 kilograms to 95 and body fat from 10 per cent to seven per cent.

But it was the work Green did with Kyle Lowry and, in particular, two words of advice from the six-time All-Star and NBA champion that continues to guide the Australian.

“Josh plays with a very high motor,” Abunassar said.

“Kyle really showed Josh how to slow down and I think that really helped him. Kyle kept stopping him and saying, ‘Hey, hey, hey. Slow down. Slow down’.

“Josh can get to shots easy but he is going so fast, which is a good problem to have. Absolutely a huge motor, non-stop.

“It’s interesting because when he was playing 18, 20, 22 minutes and then tried to play 32 minutes at the same level, he was dying out there. He’s adjusted now but it took a while.

“… He played one-on-one, they drilled together and I think that Josh seeing and understanding the confidence that Kyle had in him really helped him, because as a young player confidence is something that kind of comes from the validation of veterans.”

For Lowry, it was a way of giving back, having been mentored himself by Garnett and Chauncey Billups in the early years of Abunassar’s program when he was still developing his game.

It didn’t matter how long it would take, be it five minutes or even “sometimes 30 minutes”.

“As long as he got the point across,” Green added.

“He had the best interests in me and making sure I’m ready to go.

“He’s very, very good on the offensive end in just being patient, maintaining the dribble and he’s always been very good at that. So I’d say that’s the biggest thing [he taught me] and just creating room for your own shot and using your body to your advantage.”

It wasn’t just Lowry either. Tremmell Darden, who Abunassar described as the best player he trained to never make the NBA, and former Chicago Bulls guard Randy Brown also worked with Green.

It didn’t matter who it was though. Abunassar always heard the same thing from all the veteran players that walked through the doors at Impact.

“Every NBA vet than came in said, ‘Man, that young kid is good’. He was busting people’s arses to be honest,” Abunassar said.

“Guys like DeMarcus Cousins and other veterans playing in the gym went, ‘Man, that kid is good’. He was just at a different level this summer and he had it in his mind.

“You have guys like Lowry and Chauncey Billups and Ty Lue, my clients who were head coaches and would come through the gym with their guys and comment, ‘I really like that Green kid’. So everyone who saw him saw something that he was really growing in his game and again, for a young kid that is empowering. I think that helped him out a lot.”

Whether it would translate into tangible results on the court remained a mystery, that was until Green started playing one-on-one, and later piling on the points in five-on-five games.

“When we were doing the finishing and the ball-handling, it’s almost like the foundation of the house, you don’t know how the house is going to look when you’re finished with it,” Abunassar said.

“But when we started playing pick-up, we would play one-on-one with Kyle Lowry, Jamaal Franklin and Josh would just be consistently getting baskets and was just quick with his dribble and he was just really, really sharp.

“And then in the five-on-five, there were games where we were going to 11 and he’d score eight of the points. When they do that one or two times that’s fine, but he was doing it every day.

“In the middle of August, we started talking about his schedule because he went back to Dallas in the beginning of September, and I told him, ‘You’re ready’. He was like the finished product. We need to get this kid in front of someone immediately.”

By training camp in early October, Green was launching threes without hesitation and finishing with confidence at the rim.

“It’s Josh Green’s world,” Dallas champion Brendan Haywood said on the NBA stream, “and we’re just living in it right now”.

THE NEXT CHALLENGE FOR FAST-IMPROVING GREEN AS PAYDAY NEARS

Green’s new-found confidence in his jumper saw the Australian take a significant leap in his three-point shooting this season, draining a career-high 40.5 per cent from beyond the arc.

Caplan said Green’s confidence has been a “complete turnaround” from his first two seasons in the league, stepping into shots he “never would’ve taken last year”.

“This season, he’s obviously cut down on the mistakes he’s making, but that’s in large part because he believes he can have great success,” she said.

“He’s a completely different player, and it’s been amazing to watch his growth.”

And while the Australian has naturally hit a shooting slump or two during the season, there’s one thing you can always guarantee from the 22-year-old — hustle.

The kind of hustle that saw Green steal the ball from Anthony Lamb, twice, and then sink a three-point shot late in the third quarter against Golden State this month.

That sort of activity and energy on both ends of the floor, but particularly in defence, is how Green continues to find ways to impact winning — even if not reflected on the box score.

But Green has been filling the box score this season, averaging 9.2 points, 2.9 rebounds and 1.7 assists per game while shooting 53.5 per cent from the floor (all career-high numbers).

A lot of that, again, goes back to the confidence Green has in himself and his game. Confidence that Green said comes from the work he has put in, not just this summer but his “whole life”.

“I feel like I’ve earned everything I’ve gotten in my life in basketball,” he said.

“I came over to America not really being a big basketball player. I had no offers from schools, my first offer was from a D2 school, and it was the coolest thing in my life that D2 offer, it will still probably be the coolest thing I’ve ever done.

“Seeing moments like that, I feel like I’ve proved to myself that I’ve earned everything and I don’t want it any other way really, you know. I like working for everything I get.”

That includes a big payday, with Green rookie extension eligible this summer and otherwise set to enter restricted free agency if he can’t come to a deal with Dallas before then.

“I definitely think he’s going to get paid,” Dalton Trigg, editor-in-chief for Dallas Basketball, told foxsports.com.au.

“It’s hard to get a good feel for his market as a restricted free agent, but I could see him potentially getting somewhere in the ballpark of what Finney-Smith signed with the Mavs around this time last year — four years, $56 million.

“If he can carry his regular-season production into the postseason while the Mavs make another deep run, I think that would be good value for Green going forward.”

But unfortunately for Green and the Mavericks, that deep postseason run looks unlikely at this stage. In fact, Dallas is in a battle to even qualify for the play-in tournament now.

Green himself has hit a scoring slump recently, managing just seven points in his past three appearances despite having only earlier this month scored 20-plus in three-straight games.

There was one constant in all three of those games though — no Luka Doncic or Kyrie Irving.

It’s something the Australian has openly admitted to struggling with since Dallas traded for Irving, working out how to coexist on offence with two ball-dominant guards.

Being shifted from the starting side in late February for Justin Holiday, who the Mavericks signed in the buyout market, obviously didn’t help either.

And while a developmental coach like Kidd has largely helped empower Green, that decision – even if it quickly reversed – was an “odd” one according to Trigg.

“When he lost his starting spot to Holiday, a guy who had only been on the team for a few games, I thought that affected him mentally a little bit,” Trigg said.

“And I can’t really blame him either.”

The talent is clearly there and Green has shown enough flashes to suggest there is still plenty of growth left in him.

After all, he is only 22 years old and this is really just his second full season in the league.

But finding a supporting cast that can both score and also defend is proving a tough task for the Mavericks, who look set to enter the summer still in a state of flux.

“I think the entire team has been in a rut since the Kyrie Irving trade,” Caplan said.

“While Josh hasn’t been the reason they’re losing, he’s still been affected by the large-scale changes the team and rotation has undergone.

“He’s mentioned learning to play with two superstars now, not just one, as the reason he’s had a dip in production since the All-Star break, but he’s shown great maturity in not making excuses for the adjustment period.

“I also think he’s taken on a much larger role since Dorian Finney-Smith left in the trade, and the ‘third-year wall’ Jason Kidd referenced recently is real. Every minute and possession Josh plays now is one more than he’s ever played in an NBA season, and the grind is something he’ll continue to adjust to.”

The grind will continue into the off-season too, irrespective of what Dallas’ squad looks like next year, with the Mavericks planning on using Green more in pick-and-rolls.

That will be just one focus for Abunassar, who has already started speaking with both the Dallas coaching staff and Green himself to put together a list of goals to work on next summer.

And while the Mavericks may fall well short of playoff expectations, Green’s growth along with that of teammate Jaden Hardy casts a shining light on what otherwise seems a season destined to end in disappointment.

“I view Josh as the Mavericks’ third-most important player behind Luka Doncic and Kyrie Irving, and I think the team’s executives and coaching staff think the same,” Caplan said.

“Dallas should make it a huge priority to extend Josh’s contract this season to secure his long-term future on a deal that he could likely outplay over the next couple of years.

“The Mavericks then can use Josh as a centrepiece for another blockbuster trade or continue to pace his development so he can be a championship-level starting role player in the near future.”

But whatever the future may hold for Green, wherever the 22-year-old may end up – he always knows the door at Impact Basketball will always be open.

For some players, it’s a revolving door of sorts. For Green though, it was home for over two months last year.

He could’ve easily gone home instead, back to his real home in Australia for the first time in four years. No one would’ve questioned it and Green did do just that eventually.

But only briefly and only once he was convinced going home wouldn’t mean losing all the progress he had worked so hard for.

“In the NBA, these guys have a lot of money and have a lot of free time in the summer, so they can do whatever they want,” Abunassar said.

“They can travel, a lot of guys move around a lot, a lot of guys want to go on vacation here and do this and that. That’s fine but Josh came to Vegas after one week and never left until he actually visited home and went back to Australia in early August.

“He gave me two-straight months of just incredible commitment and it’s not easy, it’s hard work and it was every day. He focused his brain to committing his time to spending his summer on his career, which was huge.”

Now he’s reaping the rewards and for Abunassar, more impressive than anything else is the fact that even after all these years, Green is the same person that first walked through the doors at Impact back in 2020.

“It’s funny because he went to IMG when he was a junior, so he’s been on his own now for six years, really living on his own,” Abunassar said.

“So even though he’s only 22 years old, he’s quickly had to grow up. People forget these young NBA guys, he’s just turned 22 in November but people look at them like they’re 40-year-old people and they’re still kids.

“Most of us at 22 had no clue what is going on. Now you get put in these positions where you’re living on your own, you’re getting a good amount of money and you have a good amount of pressure on you.

“I think he’s handled it really well by just staying Josh. He’s the same. He’s just Josh.”