Private conversations
We have no idea what
took place in conversation with LaVar Ball prior to the draft. I’m going to speculate and say Magic Johnson
said: “We are going to draft your son”, there likely was no additional
conversation. I imagine there was no
need to inform Ball to tone his rhetoric down, the belief might be with his son
the second pick there was no requirement to continue talking. Well it didn’t work out that way, Ball talked
and talked and talked.
Much of the
conversation dealt with son Lonzo and his Laker connection. You always have one more bridge to cross and
I believe it’s now been crossed. The
latest in LaVar’s comment “He would have Lonzo opt out if the Lakers DID NOT
add LaMelo and LiAngelo to their roster.”
Who is LaVar fooling, he truly believes he can back the Lakers into a
corner. I wonder if he’s stopped to
consider the Lakers could trade Lonzo since it will be three or more years before these series of events could likely occur.
I did what I said I
would
I informed you last
week I refuse to watch the NBA All-Star game.
I followed through with my boycott, I watched not one second of play in
the game. In fact, you might have a
better clue who played well, who played bad etc. As for the other events that was a different
story, I missed seeing Spencer Dinwiddie win the Skills Competition.
This is all after
the fact, but I picked Devin Booker to win the 3-point shooting contest. Booker won scoring 28 points the highest
point total ever recorded. As for the
Slam Dunk contest Donovan Mitchell was the winner although I wasn’t
particularly impressed with his dunks. I
missed on this one, I’d picked Larry Nance Jr. as the winner prior to the contest. If you have access to NBA TV, they are likely
to re-run the events including the game if you care to view it.
2018 mock draft
In the 2018 NBA Mock
Draft there have been position changes regarding the top pick but that’s about
all. Projected Top 10 is comprised of 1
international player (Luka Doncic) and junior Mikal Bridges at Villanova plus
sophomore Miles Bridges at Michigan State.
The balance of the list is freshman.
I have traveled back and forth on the issue of high school players in
the draft. I now am solidly on the
players side for several reasons.
Chief among those
reasons the NBA is restricting employment by age which is a discriminatory
practice. Truth be told many high school
players have not proven NBA worthy, on the other hand we could make the same
statement regarding several 4-year players.
What I find most interesting outside the Top 10 is one Jontay Porter of
Mizzou, Tankathon.com/mock draft has
him as their number 18 choice. Porter
should be a high school senior instead of a college freshman, he re-classified to
play in 2017-18.
Home cooking?
One team went to the
free-throw line 35 times the opposition twice, this must have been a grade school game…. right?
No, it was a game between Big 12 opponents Kansas and West Virginia, the
game was played in Allen Fieldhouse. The
Jayhawks were winners on Saturday 77-69.
West Virginia’s Bob Huggins complained about the officiating in the
post-game press conference.
I checked the box
score on ESPN’s website and sure enough it indicated Kansas made 35 trips to
the line while West Virginia only twice.
I don’t know if the Huggins complaint was valid, I didn’t witness the
game, the box score is the only method to uncover what might have occurred. It details West Virginia whistled a disproportionate number of time over that of Kansas.
