Ex-Celtics draft pick arrested for allegedly groping a woman in her sleep
Orien Greene showed promise as a rookie on the 2005-06 Boston Celtics, and then he hit rock bottom.
Or so he thought, until setting a new low on Monday, when Boston’s former second-round pick was arrested for allegedly breaking into the bedrooms of two Florida women in the middle of the night.
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Greene, 34, allegedly confessed to entering the homes of two unsuspecting women, ages 56 and 40, in Pembroke Pines, Fla., according to reports from Miami’s WSVN-TV and TMZ Sports. The police report also alleges Greene kissed the second woman on the neck and “rubbed her butt” as she slept, and when she awoke screaming, Greene retreated to his girlfriend’s house in the same neighborhood.
Both women remain in fear for their life and plan to prosecute, WSVN-TV reported. Greene faces two counts of felony burglary and misdemeanor battery and was being held on $30,000 bail, reports said.
Greene’s NBA career was first derailed by an arrest at the end of his rookie season in March 2006. After playing his customary nine minutes off the bench in a loss to the Chicago Bulls, the 6-foot-4, 208-pound guard allegedly sped past a police cruiser around 3:30 a.m. doing more than 90 miles per hour in an SUV on Main Street in Waltham, Mass. That earned him an arrest, a one-game ban for “conduct detrimental to the team” and eventually his walking papers on the eve of free agency months later.
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He bounced around to the Indiana Pacers and Sacramento Kings for the next two seasons, before heading overseas, where he received a two-year ban retroactive to 2009 from the International Basketball Federation for allegedly skirting drug tests and then failing one for smoking marijuana while a member of a title team in Amsterdam. His international career remained at the mercy of FIBA for the next four years, during which he surfaced on the D-League’s Utah Flash.
“Teams don’t want to mess with me because of off-the-court stuff. Not on the court,” Greene told ESPN.com’s Henry Abbott in December 2010. “I just need get my life together, man. Do all the right things. Stay out the street, stay out of all the bulls—, excuse my French, but there ain’t no way I ain’t supposed to be in the league right now. I’m making such-and-such dollars. It ain’t about that, but ain’t no way I shouldn’t be playing with the best guys in this game. I feel like I belong.”
Greene dreamed of NBA redemption — and got it in February 2011, when the New Jersey Nets signed him to a 10-day contract. He played three games before returning to the D-League for the next two years. With his FIBA future in doubt, he played anywhere that would have him — Libya, Mexico, Lebanon. He is listed on the roster for Venezuela’s Guaros de Lara, where he signed on New Year’s Eve.
The pro basketball career he’s been chasing for the past 12 years now remains in serious doubt.
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Ben Rohrbach is a contributor for Ball Don’t Lie and Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach
