Basketball from a fans perspective
Double winner
6-5 point guard Lonzo Ball of Chino Hills (CA) is headed to UCLA in August. The 5-star athlete was recently named the Morgan Wooten Player of the Year and Naismith High School Player of the Year. The Naismith name requires no explanation James A. Naismith invented the game of basketball but many might be unfamiliar with the Wooten name. Morgan Wooten was the coach for DeMatha Catholic in Hyattsville (MD); he was at the helm of the high school from 1956 through 2002. Wooten’s team was 5X National High School Champions and he‘s been enshrined in the Naismith Hall of Fame.
Those are but a few of the successes he and his teams have earned in the past. Back to the discussion of Ball again this is no barometer of future success but consider the number of youngsters playing basketball across the nation. We couldn’t begin to compile the numbers but it certainly is noteworthy and places Ball in the company of several NBA players. The Naismith award is fairly new having been first awarded in 1987. Past winners of the Naismith award include Jason Kidd, Chris Webber, Kevin Love, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James.
Little movement
There has been little movement in the two primary mock draft sites I regularly check. DraftExpress.com and NBADraft.net reflect one another almost line for line in the first five picks, check it out below.
DraftExpress.com NBADraft.net
1. Ben Simmons 1. Ben Simmons
2. Brandon Ingram 2. Brandon Ingram
3. Jaylen Brown 3. Dragen Bender
4. Dragen Bender 4. Jaylen Brown
5. Kris Dunn 5. Kris Dunn
Us versus them
I’m going to refrain from getting into those us versus them debates. You know the ones where a former player from the ‘50’s, ‘60’s or ‘70’s comments on today’s players. This is the problem as I see it the vast majority of writers and television hosts are products of now. They were likely born in the ‘70’s and ‘80’s which impacts their argument. First it was Oscar Robertson commenting on Steph Curry then Kareem Abdul Jabbar weighed in agreeing with his former one-time teammate. Both were attacked by just by expressing their views, a week or so later the mouth that roared Charles Barkley tossed his hat into the middle of this skirmish.
“The NBA is full of very awful basketball this year” stated Sir Charles. I don’t subscribe to the Barkley view all though I can agree there are several bad teams including my Lakers. Back to the Robertson hornets nest there were fewer teams in the NBA when Robertson first arrived, there were only 18 teams when he retired. This is a double-edged sword, if we just look at expansion its likely there are guys in the NBA now that may have been cut from the 1960 Cincinnati Royals. They may have been cut because they were not good enough to earn a spot on an 8-team NBA. In any event I hope this is the last time you catch me writing this type of article.
Blocked shots
NBA players have been blocking shots since the beginning of time; we can credit one player for it to become noteworthy and that is Celtic legend Bill Russell. Russell arrived in the NBA in 1956-57 however for unknown reasons the NBA didn’t track blocked shots as they did points, rebounds and assists. We have no clear idea of the number of shots Russell or Wilt Chamberlain blocked. In the 1973-74 season the NBA begin first tracking blocked shots. Russell retired at the end of the 1969 season while Chamberlain retired the year prior to adoption of the blocked shot.
The shot-block leaders this season to date are Hassan Whiteside with 3.92, DeAndre Jordan at 2.26 and Anthony Davis 2.19. The NBA’s top three all-time block shot leaders in order are Hakeem Olajuwon, Dikembe Mutombo and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. Consider this bit of information Abdul Jabbar is listed in third place however he began his NBA career four years before the league began tracking blocked shots. Just like Russell and Wilt who entered the NBA earlier we have no idea how many blocked shots Abdul Jabbar registered.
