Basketball from a fans perspective

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It’s now over      

Remember back last season, Kyrie Irving could only play road games for the Nets. Due to covid continuing to rage New York City had an order in place which stated public gatherings required proof of covid vaccination or entry would be denied. I could make the same statement for our northern neighbor Canada they had a rule requiring visitors to be vaccinated. In addition to Kyrie being barred so were The nation had a similar mandate in place, just ask the Kansas City Royals who were forced to leave about a dozen unvaccinated players and coaches at home. Irving and the Royals have no issues now; the City of New York has rescinded its covid vaccination order. On Wednesday of this week, we are informed our northern neighbor Canada intends to follow a similar direction at the end of September. The pandemic appears to no longer be raging although people are still contracting covid but not in the great numbers of 1-2 years ago. 

This was surprising

It appears over much sooner than we might have thought, Suns and Mercury owner Robert Sarver has begun the process to sell his teams. The firestorm created by the NBA investigation was certainly not going to die soon however there is another piece of this story. All of us are guilty of making dumb statements at times and they can and should be forgiven. In the instance of Sarver, the investigation by the independent counsel discovered a continuing pattern of racist and misogynistic statements made by the owner. The issue I have difficulty understanding Sarver, you are an owner of he an NBA team with a majority of the players black and a WNBA team comprised of women.

The key, no one twisted Sarver’s arm to purchase either franchise. These teams didn’t transform after he became the owner, the names might have changed but certainly not the racial or gender makeup of either team. It really makes me wonder why in the world would he spend his money to own them, is it the opportunity to belong to a small group of people i.e., owner of a professional team. It’s my belief there are a few wealthy people who tend to believe they are impervious to issues such as race or gender. That’s likely a question for smarter people than me to figure out the why. Despite an upcoming change in ownership the real winner is Sarver who purchased the Suns in 2001 paying $401 million. Reports are now circulating the Suns franchise alone will have a price tag of $1.2-$2.5 billion placed on it. Who becomes the winner based on this projected outcome?

There is a change

You were correct in believing Coach K. retiring at Duke was the story in college basketball however there was another. Jay Wright winner of two NCAA championships decided to retire at Villanova, Coach K. we knew ahead of time, Wright we didn’t. We are aware Jon Scheyer took over at Duke but what about Wright’s replacement. The name is Kyle Neptune, and he is only 37-years old despite an extensive record as an assistant and head coach at Fordham. From 2013-2021 Neptune was an assistant under Wright and then left to head the Fordham program.

Once Wright made his intentions know Neptune was hired as his replacement. Unclear is whether Neptune contacted Villanova, or the school reached out to him. Neptune finds himself replacing an icon such as Wright, will he be prepared to undergo the scrutiny this will require. I always believed Wright’s team exceeded expectations. I hope this doesn’t sound offensive to fans of the program, but I never believed Wright was able to attract the top 10% of basketball talent. He was able to recruit the remainder of talent available and managed to get them to play their behinds off. The roster for Villanova is unclear to me however we can guess if there were missing pieces Neptune’s addressed that. Good luck coach in your first season at the helm.

Scoot

His given name is actually Sterling however Scoot is the nickname most know him by, he graduated high school early but decided on a pro career rather than college. The 6-foot 2 inch 195-pound guard headed for the G-League and Team Elite, as a 17-year-old Scoot outpaced many of the “veterans” in the league. This is not high school basketball so there were areas of his game requiring improvement. According to scouting reports Scoots 3-point shooting is the only real downside of his game.

Scoot is a speed merchant up and down the court and with most guards today he’s more a combo than pure point guard. How good is Scoot, of the 14 mock draft sites 11 project him in the top three in all mock draft sites with the exception of one.  In any other draft year, a talent such as Scoot would see him projected as the top pick in that year’s draft. This is not an ordinary draft year; the 2023 NBA draft is the Victor Wembanyama lottery. Teams will be jockeying position to draft Wembanyama however no doubt Scoot is number two. There are questions surrounding the durability of the talented French youngster Wembanyama.

My Mount Rushmore

We are always selecting players for our Mount Rushmore, but this is a little different. This is a Mount Rushmore of college basketball coaches. Although I consider myself a basketball historian my mountaintop contains more recent coaches. For these purposes Kentucky’s Adolph Rupp, Phog Allen University of Kansas and Oklahoma A&M (now State) Hank Iba and a number of others are not included. This trio and others won a ton of basketball games over their tenure however for my purpose 1950 is the starting point, okay here goes.

My roll contains the names of those I believe changed the college game in a variety of ways. Mount Rushmore in South Dakota contains four former presidents, mine will contain the same number of coaches. Who are those to be enshrined by me, they are Dean Smith-North Carolina, John Thompson-Georgetown, Coach K.-Duke, John Wooden-UCLA. You might ask why no John Calipari, Bill Self or Jim Boeheim on my list, nothing wrong with them they just don’t make the cut, this is my list what about yours? Check back with me in 5-6 years my Mount Rushmore of coaches might have changed. It’s likely one could be subtracted, and another added in his place I just don’t know.