When the 2016 NBA Draft takes place next month, there’s a very good chance former Kansas player Brannen Greene’s name will not be called. Greene surprised a lot of people when he declared for the draft this spring despite not playing much at Kansas last season—he averaged just 5.4 points and 2.1 rebounds per game in 12.4 minutes of action as a junior—and he’s likely going to go undrafted. But something tells us he’s not going to care much if that happens.
Greene has been working out in White Plains, New York for the last six weeks in preparation for the NBA Draft, and after flying from Los Angeles to New York City on Friday to resume his workouts, he was involved in a bad accident while driving in an Uber car. The vehicle he was traveling in was hit from behind by another vehicle on the Major Deegan Expressway in the Bronx, and according to his father Jeffrey Green, the impact was so bad that the Uber car flew into the air and hit the bottom of an overpass.
“The car went so high in the air, it actually hit underneath the overpass and then came back down and went airborne again,” Greene told the Kansas City Star. “That’s how hard they were hit.”
The car’s windows shattered during the accident and, when the vehicle finally settled back down on the ground, Greene and the Uber driver both climbed out of the car immediately. It’s a good thing they did, too, because within just seconds, the car caught on fire and then exploded. And amazingly, both Greene and the Uber driver were unhurt during the accident, even though police told Green’s father that things could have and probably should have been much worse.
“The police said Brannen should not have survived,” Greene said. “He walked away from it with a terrible headache, all-over body aches, but for the most part, he’s just dealing with mental trauma. To think he survived this…He said when the car got hit, he felt like he was sleeping, dreaming. He said, ‘I could see all this fire and it was getting hot.’ He said, ‘I’ve got to get out. I couldn’t get out. I couldn’t find my seatbelt and the wraps. I got scared. I finally hit it and the seat belt came loose. I jumped out the window and started running. Five seconds later, it sounded like a bomb.’”
Greene jumped on Twitter on Sunday to let everyone know he’s doing fine in the aftermath of the accident:
Yeah, suddenly, going undrafted doesn’t seem like such a big deal, does it?
Send all complaints, compliments, and tips to sportstips@complex.com.
