Basketball from a fans perspective
He’s leaving
Fox Sports 1 is attempting to raise its NBA profile, FS1 launched August 2013 is lacking the expertise of an ESPN. Based on this brief history they reached out and hired Chris Broussard from ESPN. Broussard has covered other sports for ESPN but generally known for covering the NBA for the network.
Pre-season All Conference
Depending on the portion of the country are world the initials might not be familiar. I’m going to point out again UMKC stands for the University of Missouri-Kansas City. From this point forward I’m going to just write UMKC and hopefully it will become familiar to you. In any event there is news ahead of the season.
Local UMKC guard Martez Harrison (University Academy KCMO) was honored along with teammate LaVell Boyd. Harrison was a first team selection while Boyd was picked for the second team. Boyd is a 6 foot guard and also a senior, home for Boyd is Chicago. Boyd was the second leading scorer for UMKC behind Harrison with a 14.1 ppg clip. WAC coaches project UMKC to tie for 5th place in the WAC Conference.
Not BFF’s
I’m not sure when I wrote this piece I mentioned recently the friendliness of many of today’s NBA players. I would guess Draymon Green and Paul Pierce will not be considered "best friends forever", they are likley to not exchange birthday, Christmas or any other type of friendly acknowledgment. Green took exception by Pierce and other to the issue regarding Kevin Durant signing with the Warriors. “Give it a break nobody complains when somebody leaves Apple for Google” Green said.
Its likely Rick Barry loves this
Unless you are a certain age or an NBA historian the name Rick Barry might not be familiar. Barry’s been out of the spotlight for a number of years after serving as an analyst after retirement. Barry’s NBA career led to induction into the Naismith Hall of Fame and College Basketball Hall. Over a 14-year NBA/ABA career his lowest free-throw percentage was .862 in his rookie season (1965-66). For 7 seasons Barry was at .900 or higher, the guy rarely missed a shoot from the free-throw line. The year prior to retirement Barry missed nine of 169 free-throw attempts a .947 percentage. I’ve mentioned this previously he shot his free-throws under hand or “granny” style.
He’s recommended over the years poor to average shooters should adopt it. The Rockets have a rookie forward on their team Chinanu Onuaku who shoots his free-throws “Rick Barry” or “granny” style. At this point we have no idea if Onuaku makes the final cut but its interesting his manner of shooting free-throws. According to the Huffington Post Onuaku adopted this style because he was such a poor free-throw shooter. He improved his percentage from .470 he shot as a freshman to .590 in his sophomore year, hey DeAndre Jordan hear that? In 8 seasons the highest percentage Jordan has shot is .525.
