Basketball from a fans perspective
A little game
I was checking out the Missouri Valley Conference, my first thought the conference has lost a little of it's MoJo losing Wichita State. Then I came upon a thought "I wonder if I can locate at least one outstanding ABA-NBA player from each of the remaining schools." Here goes, several of the names might not be familiar to you check them out in NBA & ABA Basketball Statistics & History.com:
Bradley University-Chet Walker, Hersey Hawkins
Drake University-Willie Wise
University of Evansville-Jerry Sloan
Illinois State-Doug Collins
Indiana State-LARRY BIRD
Loyola University of Chicago
Missouri State
University of Northern Iowa
Southern Illinois University-WALT FRAZIER
Wichita State-Warren (Jabali) Armstrong, Austin Carr, Xavier McDaniel
Each of the schools had at least one player who was either drafted or played in the NBA. My intent was to provide a list of outstanding ABA-ABA players from the conference. Bird and Frazier are in the Naismith Hall of Fame and College Basketball Hall. There you have it a so-called mid-major conference that's produced ABA-NBA talent throughout the years.
Bits n Pieces
I touched on this story last year but believe it is worth repeating. With no NBA team Kansas City is well-represented in the association. In Phoenix leading the Suns is Coach Earl Watson who played high school basketball at Washington HS (Kansas City KS) and moved on to UCLA and then the NBA. Leading the Cavs is Tyronn Lue originally from Mexico (MO) but moved to Raytown and Raytown HS a Kansas City suburb. Lue went on to play his college basketball at Nebraska.
Tacko Fall you remember him don't you? The 7-6 295 pound center from the University of Central Florida game improved significantly between his freshman year and last season. Fall placed his name in the 2017 draft and then withdrew it, we knew despite his height and weight he wasn't ready for the rigors of the NBA. If his junior year becomes a break out year then perhaps he might be ready. ESPN telecast a number of the games last year so maybe I can do some long distance scouting. The youngster from Senegal in West Africa might indeed play in the NBA one day.
For the first time in like forever Joel Embiid was on the court. Embiid participated in a 5 on 5 workout. It's evident the Sixers are bringing him along slowly with the hope Embiid will be ready to start the season. A healthy Embiid has proven imposing especially defensively.
Hope for Houston
The Houston metro was devastated by Hurricane Harvey in August. I'm quite sure no one in the area was thinking NBA basketball then. The arrival of Chris Paul was old news by this time. At the dawn of the season what are the expectations for 2017-18? "The Beard" James Harden moves back to the shooting guard with the arrival of Paul but that is not as bad as it might appear consider last season stats.
Harden had an 8.5 assist per game average while Paul was at 9.9 for the Clippers.
No issue distributing the basketball however there might be questions regarding the remainder of the roster. Starters Clint Capela at center, Ryan Anderson power forward and Trevor Ariza are serviceable but certainly don't strike fear in the heart of opponents. From were I sit it appears Chris Paul badly wanted out because it appears the Rockets are likely to not be much better than the Clippers.
