Minnesota Timberwolves star Anthony Edwards and Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker are among the cream of the crop at the shooting guard position in the NBA.
Both can score the ball with the best of them, and they’ve also led their respective teams deep into the playoffs. Booker helped the Suns reach the 2021 NBA Finals, and Edwards recently led the Timberwolves to just their second Western Conference Finals appearance as a franchise.
Interestingly, Houston Rockets guard Fred VanVleet thinks there’s a shooting guard on his team that can reach the level of Booker and Edwards in his career. He said that Jalen Green “has the talent” to reach their level.
“I don’t know if you can go get another 2-guard with the upside or the talent level,” VanVleet said of Green. “[Anthony Edwards] maybe in Minnesota. I don’t know, does Book have more talent than Jalen, or is he more skilled and more polished and more experienced and older? … I don’t know what Jalen will look like when he’s 26, 27, 28 after playoff series. And that’s the upside, where it’s like potential can get a little intoxicating. He has the talent. There’s no reason for him not to reach that level. He’s got to go through it; he’s got to fail.”
Like Edwards and Booker, Green has a real knack for putting the ball through the bottom of the net. He’s been a highly effective scorer since he stepped foot in the league, as he averages 20.1 points per game for his NBA career.
Green was also the key on offense for a Rockets team that enjoyed one of the most successful 2024-25 regular seasons of any team in the Western Conference. He led Houston in points per game, and the Rockets ended up with the conference’s No. 2 seed.
However, the 2025 NBA Playoffs haven’t been smooth sailing for the youngster. He’s shown his playoff inexperience in the first series of his pro career, as he’s averaging 15.5 points per game while shooting just 39.0 percent from the field and 31.3 percent from 3-point range against the Golden State Warriors.
Green has finished with single digits in points in three of the four contests of the best-of-seven series. However, he had a scoring outburst in Game 2 that gave folks a glimpse of his incredible upside.
The 23-year-old dropped a game-high 38 points and knocked down eight 3-pointers. He has scored just 24 points across the other three games against the Warriors combined.
It’s unclear if Green will ever stack up with the likes of Booker and Edwards from a production standpoint, but VanVleet seems to be bullish about the possibility that the Rockets youngster will mold into one of the league’s top shooting guards.
