Published Monday thru Friday    

Basketball from a fans perspective

Three’s a crowd…or more

There is no off season for Coach Gates and staff, they are working this spring and likely into the summer. The fruit of their labor is another prospective talent headed to Columbia. Committing to Mizzou is 6-foot 3 Caleb Grill, he’s an add-on to what might seem an overabundance of guards. Grill is an excellent three-point shooter and was enrolled at Iowa State this past season. I’ve provided the good, how about the bad. The youngster was kicked off the team at Iowa State prior to the season being completed which is a red flag. With human resource issues in place there is no mention as to WHY he was dismissed at Iowa State. Allow me to state at this point I trust the coach and his staff until proven otherwise. With that said it’s time to welcome Caleb Grill to the ZOU, hopefully this move will prove beneficial for Mizzou and Grill and the parties will be pleased with the decision.

NBA Coach of the Year

I’m writing this without knowledge of the vote totals, Sacramento Kings Coach Mike Brown was named 2022-23 NBA Coach of the Year. The Kings earned a playoff berth in the first season under Brown but wait there is more. Do you realize (okay maybe you do) the last time the Kings earned a playoff berth the President of the U.S. was George W Busch. Let’s see we had Obama for two terms, Trump for one and now Biden in the middle of his first term…that much time.

No Country for Old Men won the Academy Award as the best picture, it grossed $171.6 million, enough of the look back what about now. The Kings are a legitimate contending team, how far they go in the playoffs is unknown at this point. The accomplishment this season and into the playoffs has been a talented team. Besides that fact a young team needs a steady hand at the helm steering the ship of state named the Sacramento Kings, congratulations Coach Brown. How about this tidbit, Mike Brown with two playoff wins is now the second winningest Kings coach in history. Rick Adelman had 34 wins, 11 coaches successive coaches behind Adelman registered 0 playoff wins before Brown’s.

Wemby

A great deal has been written about the French phenom Victor Wembanyma by me. Over the last 7-10 days I have read numerous writers and looked at a considerable number of videos of Wemby in action. Shaq and Charles Barkley are cautious in their assessment of Wemby which is certainly their prerogative. On the other hand Jay Bilas of ESPN refers to him as a generational player. Bilas said this, “If 18-year-old LeBron James and Victor Wembanyama were in the same draft it might be a difficult decision.” We can easily be fooled by the hype, we thought Anthony Bennett could play in the NBA. We believed (or the Cavs did) as he was made the top choice in the 2013 NBA Draft. It was only a short time later we discovered there was a difference between UNLV Bennett and one in a Cavs jersey.

This is not to say Bennett couldn’t play the game, he just lacked the skill level to play successfully at the NBA level. I’ve written more than one account of Emoni Bates, High School Gatorade Player of the Year, stardom was predicted early. Headed into what might be his junior year there remains a question of his ability. I remember one scout wrote this while Bates was a high school sophomore. “If the NBA does away with the age 18 rule Bates will be the top pick.” Both Bennett and Bates are examples of buying into the hype by many. I am going to continue to follow the progress of Wemby for one reason alone, to date I’ve read more positive accounts than negative. There will be no immediate assessment, we must wait long past the June draft to determine who was correct.

I wonder

The local talk radio guy is discussing the Lakers-Wolves game. Among the things he said, “The Lakers have two hall of fame players (LeBron James & Anthony Davis) the rest of the team is average guys” or similar words. I thought about his statement for a moment while I pondered a response. The first part I find an issue, Anthony Davis has a “few miles to travel” before he’s considered Naismith Hall of Fame ready. No argument from me AD is a budding superstar, the holdup at this point are injuries. The second part of his statement I found most egregious, “two (hall of fame) players.” How many NBA teams might you suppose have multiple talented roster members?

How about the Suns maybe with Chris Paul, Devin Booker and Kevin Durant. Can you name any other teams? My focus goes to the Warriors trio of Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. Someone might challenge me including Paul with the Suns and Green with the Warriors but they are super talented. What was the radio guy talking about, was he just not impressed with the Lakers roster or something else. I would challenge him to name any other NBA team with the exception of those named with more than three hall of fame players. It’s unnecessary for an All-Pro at all five positions, a team should be able to blend the talent of its role players with its more talented roster members. I guess if you have four hours of airtime to fill daily, I guess you can experience brain farts from time to time.