Basketball from a fans perspective
Top 10
ESPN released its final Recruiting Class Rankings for 2017, the Top 10 schools are:
1. Kentucky
2. UCLA
3. Arizona
4. Duke
5. Alabama
6. Miami
7. Louisville
8. Texas
9. Florida
10. Mizzou
Someone might say I’m reading too much into this news, no I don’t think so. I believe it might be an indication for the future of Mizzou basketball, at least I hope. (fingers crossed)
Can you say déjà vu?
The late Bill Davidson loved Isiah Thomas; the Piston point guard led the way for two NBA Championships. It was reported the owner promised an interest in the franchise once Thomas retired. After the player retired a strange thing occurred, as far as we know the former player was never offered a portion of Piston ownership. In 2009 owner Davidson died and since then the Pistons have been sold to Tom Gores, the new owner has no obligation to Thomas. I'm sure Gores is aware of the Thomas connection to the Piston however does he have the responsibility to honor the pledge made by Davidson?
We don't have the answer however there's been no public word of it. A similar situation has developed between the Wolves and Kevin Garnett back in 1995 the Wolves drafted Kevin Garnett directly from high school, The Big Ticket would toil several years with the franchise. Later he move to first Celtics and later the Nets. In 2015 Garnett near the end of his illustrious NBA career would return to Wolves in a player/coach role. He was reported to become a minority owner of the Wolves, like Thomas before him strange goings on. I’m not going to detail the issues but simply state its déjà vu once again in the NBA.
Headed to Arizona
Shareef O’Neal is one of the six children of Shaquille O’Neal; in addition he’s a top basketball prospect in the Class of 2018. On Shareef’s list of schools are USC, UCLA, Kansas, Baylor and a host of other schools including LSU his dad’s school. The program at LSU is in turmoil so it’s highly unlikely young O'Neal would be head to LSU despite the family connection. At this stage it’s a verbal commitment so he certainly has time to deliberate on this over the next year or so. Shaq claims he left the decision to his son, Shareef is a great deal smaller than dad checking in at 6-9 and 205 pounds. He‘s still a growing youngster despite this fact he will likely never be the force in the paint his dad was.
Bits n Pieces
I have no method of going back and checking just my thoughts. I believe for the first time in recent memory I might have viewed more college and high school basketball than the NBA. Have I changed my viewing habits, maybe to a degree however I continue to believe the best basketball is still played in the NBA?
The college basketball season has ended; we close in on the end of the semester for high school. Prep players will be returning to their former AAU teams while others will be searching for a new team to join. Metro Kansas City has 10 AAU basketball teams by my count. That might be small by comparison to Metro Los Angeles, Dallas-Fort Worth or some other large metro area in the nation. Kansas City AAU teams are often comprised of out state Kansas, out state Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma and even Nebraska athletes. I wonder if other cities teams are comprised of this large a mix of talent.
The next stop might be Hawaii, I’m just kidding with this story. I’ve covered the movements of NBA teams especially the early years. The Kings have been on a steady westward move, the franchise was originally founded as the Royals in Rochester (NY) in 1948 where they played until 1957. In 1957 they moved west to Cincinnati (OH) which was home until 1972. 1972 would witness the team moving west again to Kansas City (MO) re-branded as the Kings. Kansas City would be home-base until 1985 when they moved once again this time to Sacramento (CA) where they remain to this day. The franchise was almost sold to Seattle interest which planned on moving them north.
At the close of the second year I remain unsure. In 2015 we believed the Wolves would choose Karl-Anthony with the first pick. Everyone (including Larry Laker) believed the Lakers with the second pick would then choose Jahlil Okafor. They needed a quality big man and Okafor “appeared” to fit that bill. Instead of Okafor the Laker pick became D’Angelo Russell. The Lakers and Sixer rookies experienced up and down years in addition both suffered maturity issues. Was it the Lakers or Sixers, who made the best choice, you make the call.
