NBA will plant three trees for each three-pointer during Green Week
Stephen Curry leads the NBA in three-pointers this season with 218 makes on a ridiculous 42% shooting.
If that wasn’t scary enough for opposing teams, they certainly won’t want to face the Warriors starting on Sunday, March 22. That’s because Curry and every other long-distance shooter in the NBA will have extra motivation to let it fly from deep. As part of NBA Green Week, for every three-pointer made from March 22-29, the NBA will plant three trees with the help of the Arbor Day Foundation.
That means every desperation halfcourt heave, every random big-man three, and yes, every conversion from the Splash Brothers will result in three more trees.
• MORE NBA: Warriors Green makes quick impact beyond the arc
“A number of our teams already did it,” said Todd Jacobson, the NBA’s Senior Vice President of Social Responsibility. “We decided to make it national. We get many of our ideas from our teams.”
NBA Green Week is part of the NBA’s larger mission statement to be the best league in the world. As Jacobson terms it, being environmentally conscious is part of the organization’s “DNA.” Green Week serves to highlight the initiatives the NBA takes throughout the season to be socially responsible.
NBA Big Board 4.0: Shuffle near the top as 2015 March Madness tips off
For example, through a partnership with Mosaic, the NBA studies how each arena in the league could operate more efficiently by examining practices of energy use or water use for the whole season.
During Green Week, the NBA and Sprint are partnering with the Bonneville Environmental Foundation to buy renewable energy certificates, which will make the arenas hosting each game powered by renewable energy.
Green Week won’t just be for the owners and players. Through its partnership with Sprint, the NBA will also sponsor mobile phone recycling events for people across the country, with the help of some former NBA stars such as Rick Fox.
The recycling program is part of the “three pointers” the NBA hopes to hit home during the week: reduce, reuse and recycle.
• MANNIX: Mailbag: James Harden or Steph Curry for MVP
Fans can get in on the tree action as well. The NBA, Sprint and Arbor Day Foundation will plant another tree every time a fan tweets with the hashtag “#NBAGreen.” The three organizations will plant up to 25,000 trees through a combination of three-pointers and fan tweets.
So if you’re a fan of a particular team—say, the Houston Rockets, who average the most three-point field goals per game—you may want to root a little harder for those shots to go in. And even if you’re a fan of a team that loses on a devastating Damian Lillard three-pointer—say, the Houston Rockets—you can take solace in the fact that the shot was socially responsible.
