One month after our conversation, news broke that Green had been traded. The Houston Rockets sent their dynamic scorer to the Phoenix Suns in a massive swap that brought Kevin Durant to H-Town, closing the book on Green’s time with the upstart Rockets, who surged to 52 wins and the Western Conference’s second seed before falling to Steph Curry and the Warriors in a seven-game playoff battle.
Though he doesn’t know at the time that he’ll later be moving to the desert, Green offers some thoughts to me on how he can improve next season, which will be his fifth in the NBA. “You know, everything’s a learning process,” he says. “You got to take everything day by day, brick by brick. And most of all, just things I need to work on, things I need to focus on, learn to improve the next year, the mentality I need to have, the work I need to put in.”
Gordon von Steiner
As he shifts into basketball mode again after the offseason, Green must now acclimate to his new team but also all of the body maintenance needed to withstand an 82-game grind. That means cold plunges, which are part of his routine. In fact, while we talk, he’s drying off after taking a series of photos in a full-body ice bath. Green is usually just a hips-down guy, so doing a full submerge was a change of pace. All part of the territory for someone who’s positioned himself as one of the flyest dudes in the NBA and now has the brand backing to go with it.
“I’m still shivering,” Green said just before we part ways. “I do cold plunges, but I don’t cold plunge like that, though. Got to do it for Calvin.”
