Basketball from a fans perspective
Published Monday through Friday
Bits n Pieces
The Cavs continue to make news in the off-season; the latest news Kyrie Irving has requested the team trade him. Officially general manager David Griffin was fired, unofficially LeBron James appears headed to Los Angeles to play for the Lakers or the Clippers next year and now this. The Cavs franchise appears to be in a state of flux at this time. Most surprising, they are the defending Eastern Conference Champions.
Kamaka Hepa is a name few know; he’s a 6-9 forward from Jefferson High School in Portland (OR). That’s not his original home he’s actually from Barrow Alaska, Barrow is as far north as an American can live and still reside in the U.S. Hepa is an Eskimo and he might be the first to play Division I basketball, he participated in the Nike Peach Invitational recently. Several Division I schools have made offers to Hepa so expect to see him in 2018 at a major college.
He’s reported to be extremely raw however allow me to introduce you to 7-5 Matt Van Komen. Van Komen is from Lehi (UT) and is a Class of 2019 prospect. Recently he was matched against 7-1 Bol Bol in the West Coast Elite Summer Classic. You are familiar with the name Bol, I found it interesting the media covered the game but provided no final score, and we have do idea which team won.
“Laker rookie signs shoe deal”
The above headline would lead one to believe this was likely Lonzo Ball.
After all he would likely sign a contract with his family BBB brand. Surprise, surprise, surprise it wasn’t Lonzo Ball -----it was Kyle Kuzma. The former Utah Ute was named MVP of the champion Laker Summer League team announced his signing with Nike.
This was summer league (rookies & second year athletes) so I’m certainly not going overboard with praise. Kuzma managed to average 21.9 ppg, 6.4 rebounds and 2.7 assists during play. As was mentioned earlier he was drafted by the Jazz and his rights traded to the Lakers. The 6-9 player claims he can play anywhere but is likely to see service at the small forward position.
Number three
I wondered how many NBA players has Finland produced, according to RealGM only two thus far, Hanno Mottola played at Utah and was drafted by the Hawks in 2000, his career was brief. Erik Murphy with dual U.S./Finn citizenship played at Florida and later in the NBA with the Bulls, neither of the two is in the NBA at present.
On June 22 Lauri Markkanen changed all that when he became the number seven pick by the Wolves, his rights were later traded to the Bulls. Markkanen a 7 foot power forward is from Vantaa, Finland and played his college ball at Arizona. Markkanen proves the point outside of football (soccer) basketball and the NBA might be the world’s second most popular sport.
