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Basketball from a fans perspective

It wasn’t quite as we believed

In a recent interview Julius ‘Dr. J’ Erving provided a correction to a portion of his bio. He said, “The ABA had a hardship clause and underclassmen were allowed in the league. This didn’t exist in the brown ball league.” Why he left school early, he claimed an agent informed him “The ABA will go out of existence in 2-3 years you should make all the money you can, the opportunity won’t be there later.” Dr. J. smiled as he explained “The ABA continued to operate 5 more years beyond that date.” Why did he choose UMass, “I really wanted to go to St. John’s, Lou Carnesecca had been recruiting me heavily? Amherst was a 2 and ½ hour drive from Long Island and I wanted to get away from home.

The first season at UMass saw the doctor score 25.7 points and pull down 20.9 rebounds a game, pretty amazing for a 6-foot 6-inch 200 pound forward. When he returned for what became his last season at UMass, he scored 26.9 points along with 19.5 rebounds a game. Dr. J. was ready for the rugged play of professional basketball in the ABA. He left after his junior year (1971) signing with the Virginia Squires, the following year the NBA could legally draft Dr. J. which the Bucks did with the 12 pick in the first round in 1972. The balance of his basketball story was a high wire act with thunderous dunks. The story how Dr. J. managed to arrive with the Sixers is quite complex however despite the fact the ABA Nets moved into the NBA they did so without Dr. J. on their roster.

Bits n Pieces

With trade talk surrounding Russell Westbrook all season long I decided to use ESPN’s NBA Trade Machine. I plugged in the name of Westbrook and added Myles Turner and Buddy Hield from the Pacers, guess what, the trade worked. According to John Hollinger’s trade machine the Pacers win total would decrease by 12 and the Lakers would be +6. I have no idea the accuracy of Hollinger’s premise but if it’s close to being accurate it would appear the Lakers should move on the deal quickly. Based on my previous statement although it looks good as the old repetition says. “Everything that glitters is not gold”, that might be the case with this model.

When discussing the Eastern Conference race recently I omitted the Sixers. The Sixers led by Joel Embiid and featuring James Harden is certainly one of the contenders but there is an issue…the coach. I’ve long mentioned my belief Doc Rivers is overrated as a coach. I know you are going to mention the 2008 NBA Championship won by his Celtics team. I can agree that’s the one outstanding accomplishment for Rivers but that’s it, his past teams (Magic, Clippers) have underperformed at times. This applies especially to the Clippers when they were certainly the better team. So you might see why I overlooked the Sixers…it was due to their coach.

How about this one, I don’t know the length of time, but I noticed the Big 10 was using a strange (for me) looking logo. It’s B1G and this is the explanation I read, “The resulting logo features contemporary collegiate lettering with an embedded numeral “10” in the word “BIG,” which allows fans to see “BIG” and “10” in a single word”. I understand the effort the conference made but the question still remains for me. It still looks a little strange to me, oh well.

Purdue center Zach Edey stands 7 foot 4 and either 285 or 295 pounds depending on your source. If this was 1980 or even 2000 NBA scouts would be making notes and discussing their belief in his NBA future. Instead we read scouting reports indicating his prospect of playing in the NBA are limited. For one thing Edey doesn’t have a 3pt shot similar to Joel Embiid, that fails to bother me but in today’s NBA centers are expected to shoot it. One of the other complaints “he’s slow a foot” which in my mind is a little misleading. Is the center of today responsible for generating the break, you can answer that later. If I’m a general manager I would choose him if I had the opportunity. Edey is a double-double man for Purdue scoring at a 21.9 clip along with 13.4 rebounds a game.

A cautionary tale

To the surprise of most in Mizzou Nation the Tigers received another commit for 2023-24. This from a 6-foot 5 210-pound wing player, his name Curt Lewis and he will arrive at Mizzou after playing first at Eastern Kentucky and this past season at John Logan College. Lewis had a number of offers on the table but decided in favor of Mizzou giving the school a verbal commit on Monday. The early assessment of his game he’s a scorer a role highly favored at Mizzou.

This next portion is a Rock M Nation account, they claim Lewis is highly valued since they expect to lose a player to transfer after the season. I have an idea who that player might be however I’m not going to name him. In any event it will likely be the spring period before Lewis signs on the dotted line. Welcome to the ZOU Curt Lewis. Mizzou now has five prospects headed to Columbia in the fall, as for the purpose of the headline. Although he played Division I basketball at Eastern Kentucky he literally arrives after playing at the junior college level.