Basketball from a fans perspective

　
What I learned
Bill Self is a good college coach as for his medical knowledge that’s another question. Prior to the 76er announcement reports indicated Joel Embiid would require surgery. Self who coached Embiid responded “no further surgery” was required. Who provided him the information relating to Embiid? Self led the US team comprised of mostly Kansas players win the gold medal in the World University Games. Perhaps Self should stick to basketball rather than practicing medicine.

Wanna know how pleased the Thunder were with Enes Kanter‘s play? Kanter arrived in Oklahoma City in a 3-way February trade from the Jazz. The 6-11 center became a restricted free-agent at the end of the 2015 season. Once the free-agent period opened the Blazers made an offer to Kanter. Well no deal was reached, the Thunder decided to match the Blazer effort so the Turkish Big Man will remain in Oklahoma City.

Rivals and ESPN Recruiting Nation don’t agree, on the other hand is it really necessary? Class of 2016 list Rivals.com says Josh Jackson a 6-7 shooting guard is their number one. Jackson hails from Napa (CA) an hour and four minutes drive from San Francisco with little traffic. Jackson has made no decision on a school nevertheless his choices contain the list of usual suspects. As for ESPN Recruiting they chose Harry Giles a 6-10 power forward from Winston-Salem (NC). Giles list is similar to Jackson in that he has several of the same schools.

At this point it appears Nick Young a.k.a. Swaggy P. will remain a Laker. I like Swaggy for his free-spirit attitude and spontaneity. Now I question if this care-free spirit might cause issues with this youthful Laker team. As for Swaggy he missed a great deal of time last season and when he was on the court didn’t shoot particularly well. I thought with a re-tooled roster Swaggy would be on the outside looking in but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Management has all but confirmed he’s a Laker for the time-being.

Zydrunas Ilgaukas
The 7-3 Lithuanian suffered a series of foot injuries which sidelined him early in his NBA career. In 1996 he would be the 20^th pick in the first round of the 1996 draft. I’m sure Cavs fans must have regretted the choice. The first year Ilgaukas was a starter in 81 of the 82 games that season that would be his last full season for several years. He would miss parts of the next three seasons and remained sidelined until the 2002-03 season. Fully healed Ilgaukas returned to full time play and would play for 12 seasons most with the Cavs. Where am I going with this story you might ask? It’s been reported Joel Embiid of the 76ers will require foot surgery once again. He will miss the 2015-16 season his second consecutive miss. All foot injuries are not the same and I certainly am not comparing. The point I’m attempting to make Ilgaukas could have easily given up yet he sustained.

China in da House
When is the next Yao Ming going to emerge from China? That’s the question on the minds of many NBA fans including this one. He might not be the second coming of Yao but He Tianju could be the next Chinese import to gain an NBA roster. The 24-year old is playing for the Pelicans Summer League team in Las Vegas. Tianju hails from Liaoning China which is located in the northeast portion of the nation, its 5-7 miles drive time from the nation’s capital Beijing. Tianju has four years experience playing in the Chinese Basketball Association. There is no guarantee he will be signed but I thought it noteworthy to bring to your attention. If we look ahead to 2016 NBADraftnet.com and DraftExpress.com both list Zhou Qi as a draft prospect, Qi is 7-2 and weighs a lean 209 pounds

Where are they?
ABC announced they are adding a limited number of Saturday night games in the
2015-16 season. This move is interesting on several levels; number one of course is financial. I’m sure by now you’ve read or heard of the cut-backs at ESPN. The “where are they” question is simple, 5-4-3-2-1 cue the naysayer’s. You know them, the folks who like to remind us on a daily basis, “Nobody is watching the NBA.”   Somebody out there must be watching the games, rest assured ABC did not make this decision on a snap basis.