AJ Green on coming home to Cedar Falls and playing for Milwaukee Bucks
Cedar Falls native AJ Green talks about coming home and what it’s like playing in the NBA
Former Cedar Falls High School star AJ Green has become a key contributor for the Milwaukee Bucks.Green’s dedication to basketball started at a young age, fueled by his father’s coaching and his own self-motivation.Despite his initially small stature, Green honed his shooting skills and became a standout player in high school and college at Northern Iowa.
CEDAR FALLS – AJ Green strolls to the center of the Cedar Falls High School gym and is surrounded by kids heaving basketballs at hoops. Green, in town for his annual shooting clinic, blows a whistle to get everyone’s attention so he can get things started.
“We’ve got to work on those whistle starts,” his dad, Kyle, says with a smile.
The sound is just enough, though, to get all the young players to stop what they’re doing and come running over to him. It’s not the sound of the whistle but the man using it that they’re drawn to.
When AJ Green talks shooting, people listen.
“He could always shoot it,” said Cedar Falls boys basketball coach Ryan Schultz.
That special skillset is what made Green a local legend growing up and then a star in high school and college. The 25-year-old Iowa native now has become a key contributor in the NBA with the Milwaukee Bucks and a celebrity back in his hometown of Cedar Falls.
“Seeing him play against all these people that he idolized growing up has been really awesome,” said Green’s sister, Emerson, who like her brother played at Northern Iowa.
“It was self-motivated”
AJ Green didn’t have the size at first to be a basketball star. But he quickly generated the necessary skills until he did. Green grew up small and scrawny in a basketball household. Kyle Green, now an assistant coach for the Iowa State men’s basketball team, was a former college player himself. He taught AJ all the intricacies of the game.
Kyle brought AJ along to practices while he worked as an assistant coach at Northern Iowa. The two also hit up a local park and shot baskets on a hoop at their Cedar Falls home. AJ popped in training videos Kyle kept around the house, learning ball-handling and shooting drills.
After studying the drills, AJ went outside and practiced what he’d learned in the family’s backyard. When Kyle came home from work, his son would be outside shooting and dribbling and constantly pleading with his dad to join in.
“It was self-motivated,” Kyle said.
AJ Green wanted to keep learning. He wanted to be great. That meant work − a lot of work considering his small frame.
Because of Kyle Green’s job as a coach, the family was constantly on the move. Making friends wasn’t always easy. But there was always a gym to play in.
The hard work paid off for Green, who became a skilled and slick ball-handler.
When Green was in middle school, he performed ball-handling tricks at his school’s talent show. The youngster hopped on stage and with the Harlem Globetrotters theme song “Sweet Georgia Brown” blaring in the background. He would spin a basketball on his fingers and dribble it between his legs while dazzling the crowd.
Green’s small size actually proved to be beneficial during his younger days. He learned to overcome his lack of size by developing a strong shot. With help from dad, Green came up with something special.
“I think that forced me to be able to get my shot off multiple ways against longer, better defenders,” Green said. “And so that’s what led to the release.”
An accurate shooting touch became a calling card of Green’s game. No matter who he was playing against, he found a way to fire up shots and connect from wherever he was on the court. That became important, especially early in high school.
When Green arrived at Cedar Falls High School for his freshman season, he was around 5-foot-8 and 130 pounds. Schultz said Green looked like he was in sixth grade. Still, he found ways to impact the games early on.
Over time, he grew … and grew. By his sophomore year, he checked in at about 5-10. As a junior, he was about 6-1. During Green’s senior season, he blossomed into a nice 6-3 frame. (He’s 6-4 now).
While Green kept growing, he kept working. When he was 14, Green got his school permit and would drive to the high school around 6 a.m. to set up a shooting machine and toss up shots. As Green’s size started to match his work ethic, he shined even more.
He became an important contributor as a freshman. Then, during his sophomore season, Green knocked down a 17-footer in overtime to send Cedar Falls to the state tournament. He was on everyone’s radar at that point. Green was a first-team all-state pick by the Iowa Newspaper Association in 2016, 2017 and 2018. During his senior season, he led Cedar Falls to the Class 4A state championship, averaging 26 points per game and becoming the school’s all-time leading scorer.
The success garnered him tons of attention. Green became a four-star recruit and generated interest from colleges such as Iowa State, Minnesota, Virginia, Clemson and Northern Iowa. With his dad working on Ben Jacobson’s staff at UNI, Green opted to play for the Panthers.
“I knew I wanted to play at the NBA,” Green said. “I could get to that level from UNI. I didn’t need to go to a bigger school to do that.”
“He just has always been driven”
One Northern Iowa game stands out to Kyle Green. It came during AJ’s freshman season during the 2018-19 campaign. The Panthers were playing at Illinois State and Green, a strong free-throw shooter, was fouled with Northern Iowa trailing by three with two seconds remaining in regulation.
Green missed the first of three free-throw attempts but connected on the next two. It pulled the Panthers to within one point, but that was as close as it got as Illinois State held on to win. After the game, the team got on a bus and drove back to Cedar Falls. When they arrived home around 1 a.m., Green went straight into the gym. He vowed to stay until he made 100 free throws.
“He just has always been driven,” Kyle Green said.
That drive made AJ Green one of the best college basketball players in the country. When it was all said and done that season, Green broke the school record for points in a season by a Northern Iowa freshman and was named Missouri Valley Conference Freshman of the Year.
That season’s success was just the start of things. The following season, he averaged 19.7 points per game and was named the MVC Larry Bird Player of the Year. His 2020-21 season was derailed after just three games due to a hip injury. But he came back better than ever the next season.
During the 2021-22 campaign, Green averaged 18.8 points per game and once again earned Larry Bird Player of the Year honors. By that point, his father had gone to work on the staff at Iowa State under T.J. Otzelberger. Green decided to follow his dad to Ames … temporarily.
Green received interest from NBA teams and decided to enter the NBA Draft, bypassing a chance to reunite with his dad at Iowa State. The decision paid off. Green went undrafted but he signed a two-way contract with the Milwaukee Bucks. During his Summer League debut, he tallied 14 points against the Brooklyn Nets.
“I always knew and believed in what I could do and what I wanted to do,” Green said. “But I knew it’d take a lot of work and it wouldn’t be easy.”
He steadily showed that he belonged on the biggest stage. Green appeared in 35 games during the 2022-23 season and averaged 4.4 points in 9.9 minutes per game. The following season, he appeared in 56 games and averaged 4.5 points in 11 minutes a game.
Green is now coming off his best season yet. During the first round of the playoffs, Green tallied 19 points and grabbed four rebounds during a Game 5 overtime loss to the Indiana Pacers. The loss ended Milwaukee’s season but it was a great ending to a strong season for Green, who played in 73 games and averaged a career-high 7.4 points per game. His 42.7% success rate from 3-point range ranked 12th in the league.
The success has led to big things for Green, who signed a standard contact with the Bucks in 2023. The deal was reportedly for three years and worth $6.3 million, including a $1.9 million guarantee when he signed.
“It’s something that he’s dreamed of since he was little,” Emerson Green said. “Seeing all the NBA teams in his room growing up, it’s crazy that this is now and this is what he gets to do.”
A.J Green’s success hasn’t changed his personality, though. He’s still soft-spoken, still modest and in some ways still in awe of what he’s doing. Green continues to make trips back to Iowa to visit friends and family and to host his clinic at the high school.
Kids at the camp surround him as he hoists up shots and watch his every move.
“He’s just a genuine, hard-working, wonderful person,” Schultz said.
Tommy Birch, the Register’s sports enterprise and features reporter, has been working at the newspaper since 2008. He’s the 2018, 2020 and 2023 Iowa Sportswriter of the Year. Reach him at tbirch@dmreg.com or 515-284-8468.