Jalen Green finds Detroit a Boring City, not the Motor City

There was a little part of me that wanted Houston Rockets rookie guard Jalen Green to be a member of the Detroit Pistons.

For me, the philosophy is always – if someone is going to overpay in the heat of the moment – you take advantage of it. Guard Cade Cunningham is labeled as a sure-thing prospect but, dropping one spot to add a guy like Green, who was referenced by some as 1B to Cunningham’s 1A, wouldn’t have been so bad,. if it came with a variety of additional assets, right?

Nope … Wrong.

That whole thought process went out the window Monday for me, when Green took a shot at Detroit, the city, not the franchise in an interview with Yahoo! Sports.

"“I wanted to be the No. 1 pick, but as for the location, I didn’t want to be in Detroit,” Green said in a Yahoo! Sports interview. “With Detroit, it felt like I was just going back to the G League bubble, and I just got out of the bubble. That’s pretty much what it was.”"

You can read the rest of the quote here if you haven’t, but essentially he compares Detroit to the G-League bubble, where he goes from basketball to his apartment, and that’s all.

If he were in Detroit, apparently that’s all Green would have done.

He wouldn’t go to a Detroit Tigers game, where a stadium of die-hard fans would have embraced him during a first pitch, and I guess that means Green wouldn’t be at the annual Woodward Dream Cruise this weekend either, getting a true grasp of what the Motor City resembles.

Assuming he wouldn’t ever vacation ‘up north’ or near any of the 11,000 inland lakes, or for that matter, ever raise a family in a city of more than 630,000 people in a state of just over 10 million.

Green, I hate to break it to you, but you didn’t get to decide on where your future would be. That was obvious when you told the world you wanted to live in Detroit when you spoke to GQ in July.

Remember that?

Instead, Pistons general manager Troy Weaver determined it. He went through a thorough pre-draft process that ultimately led to Cunningham.

And thank goodness he did went through that, because while you’re going on a tantrum tour slandering the city of Detroit, the No. 1 pick is showcasing his ability to be the leader of a franchise and city you won’t – and don’t – ever deserve to experience.