Mizzou bound?
10 days or so ago Mizzou
listed 25 players they made offers from the Class of 2021. One of those prospects receiving an offer was
7-foot power forward Chet Holmgren from Minneapolis and Minnehaha Academy. On Tuesday ESPN100 revised its list of
prospects, at the top of the list and number one was Chet Holmgren. Holmgren is a Rivals 5-Star prospect too, it
would be quite exciting for Mizzou Nation if he were headed for Columbia in the fall of 2021, by the way I am not going to hold my breath on this one.
Brian Shaw has a job
G-League President Shareef
Abdur-Rahim announced past NBA player and former coach Brian Shaw has been
hired as coach as the G-League Select Team.
The Select Team is the newly formed team comprised of outstanding high
school players, the players selected to date were mostly headed to college but
decided for an early start to their eventual professional basketball
careers.
Among the roster
members are Jalen Green, Isiah Todd, Daishen Nix, and Kai Sotto, Jalen Green,
Isiah Todd, and Daishen Nix. We know
have four roster members and a head coach, all remaining now is to fill out the
roster with additional talent. The
Select Team will be unique in that it will not be affiliated with any
NBA team or existing G-League team which should prove interesting.
Was he black-balled?
Black Lives Matter,
NFL players kneeling reminded us of an earlier history and it was in the NBA. There might be others however this focus is
on Chris Jackson. He would convert to
Islam once in the NBA and underwent a name change to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. In high school he was a Parade All American
twice and in 1988 he enrolled at LSU, his teammates were twin towers Shaquille
O’Neal and Stanley Roberts. He would
become the third pick in the 1990 draft by the Nuggets and would play with them
through 1998.
After his conversion
to Islam the problem would begin, Abdul-Rauf refused to stand for the National
Anthem. Later an arrangement was made he
would remain in the locker room and would return to the court once the anthem
was complete. This worked for a while,
but it created too much controversy for some.
He would be traded to the Kings and later played in Turkey, he returned for
the 2000-01 season for the Vancouver Grizzlies.
Although he continued to play overseas his NBA career ended at age 32
and it probably had nothing to do with his ability to play the game. Was Abdul-Rauf and early “Colin Kaepernick”
in that NBA teams refuse to sign him.
Future NBA Expansion
The NBA is nowhere
close to expansion, my attention was heightened by a Sam Quinn CBS Sports.com
article. He posed the question in an
article written May 26, the cities mentioned caused my excitement. Seattle would be expected, the NBA did a
number on the city and fans there have been campaigning for a return.
Las Vegas, well I
guess it could be a destination based on the NFL Raiders moving there. The city supports UNLV basketball so we shall
see. Also cited in Quinn’s account was
Mexico City, it has been mentioned on more than one occasion and the 21 million
population make it an attractive destination.
Although outside the U.S. the city is in the same time zone of Chicago
and Dallas. The last city on Quinn’s
list was Kansas City, no need of going into detail here you know how I
feel.
He is in charge
We have discussed the moves by the revitalized
G-League recruiting high school talent. At
least four high profile players will develop in the league rather than attend
college. We know the names, but do we
know the man operating as president of the G-League. His name is Shareef Abdur-Rahim and he was a
successful former NBA player, Abdur-Rahim moved from playing the game to
running it in a manner of speaking. He
would begin his development in the basketball world as an assistant coach for
the Kings in 2008.
A little more than two years later Abdur-Rahim would be named an assistant general manager for those Kings. Three years later he became general manager of a G-League team and from there an associate vice-president of operations for the NBA. In December 2018 Abdur-Rahim was named president of the G-League. As you can see the journey has been a move upward since his playing days. A prediction, Abdur-Rahim might become the first former NBA player to become commissioner someday.
