Draymond Green, tight end? Not based on his MSU spring game cameo
After Tony Gonzalez, Antonio Gates and Jimmy Graham, it’s natural for football fans to wonder which basketball power forwards could have played in the NFL.
We’ve been down the “could LeBron James have played in the NFL?” road a lot over the last decade, but here’s another name from the NBA Finals that is interesting to think about: Draymond Green of the Golden State Warriors.
Why not, right? He’s got good size at 6-foot-7, 230 pounds. He’s obviously agile and athletic. if Gates could go from never having played college football to being a future Pro Football Hall of Fame tight end, why couldn’t Green do it too?
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Well, Green did suit up for Michigan State, in their 2011 spring game. And there’s probably a reason that Green stuck with hoops:
That was it, two plays. He had false start on the first one, as he lined up across from future Tampa Bay Buccaneers starting defensive end William Gholston. On the second he had the ball sail incomplete over him, though was interfered with (what else are you going to do when a 6-7 tight end splits out wide?).
“It’s never as easy as it looks,” Green told MLive.com in 2011. “I thought I knew what I was doing, until I got jammed at the line of scrimmage. It’s not easy. It’s like basketball. It looks easy, but it’s not.”
MLive.com said Green played tight end and defensive end for his high school varsity team as a freshman. Saginaw High coach Don Durrett told MLive.com that Green “has the abilities to play tight end at the next level.”
It all worked out just fine for Green. Green has become a fantastic player, a key member of a Golden State team that won a title last year and is one win away from a second straight championship this season. He has improved his scoring average in all four seasons, and scored 14 per game this season.
With some seasoning Green might have been an NFL star, but he should be content that his Spartans spring game cameo was the extent of his football career beyond high school.
“It was just for fun, something I wanted to do,” Green said in 2011 to MLive.com. “I thought it would be my only chance to ever do it at that level.”
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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter! Follow @YahooSchwab
