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Basketball from a fans perspective

“Confidence is everything in this game, if you don’t think you can, you won’t”

Jerry West 

The Best Player on Planet Earth

Joseph Vincent produced a YouTube video with the title The Best Player on Planet Earth, it was a reference to Nuggets center Nikola Jokic. I didn’t watch Vincent’s video but decided to check some numbers. I’m sure Nuggets fans and maybe others will not be pleased with this next statement. Jokic has one of the weirdest three-point shots in my recent memory, I watched him throughout last season’s playoffs take the shot. Guess what, as unorthodox as the shot looked most of the time he sunk the basket. As proof he shot 38.3% during the season and in the playoffs it was a sizzling 46%.

The 6 foot 11 Jokic rebounded the ball at a 12.7 per game clip during the regular season, in the playoffs he raised it to 13.5. 24.5 points per game average was raised to 30.0 playoff basketball. I’m going to stop with the numbers at this point and say Nikola Jokic is a very good basketball player. Is Jokic the best player on Planet Earth, that’s your call for several reasons? If we look strictly at the numbers and based on two NBA MVP’s (2021, 2022), NBA Finals MVP and a host of other honors I could be persuaded that he’s the best. There are portions of his game plus other NBA players I might have overlooked, what do you think, am I off base?  

Mizzou visits

I’m unsure if this was reported correctly, in this instance I’m discussing a possible error on my part. In any event a portion of this might be a repeat. On September 1 Trent Burns visited Mizzou the facilities and the coaching staff. Burns is a Rivals 4-star prospect attending PSAT Academy in Houston, he’s a 7-foot 2 220-pound post player and a Class of 2024 prospect. I believe the error was the report on Jayden Quaintance, his Mizzou visit is scheduled for Thursday September 21.

Quaintance is a Rivals 5-star prospect and is 6 foot 10 235-pound post player, he attends Word of God Christian Academy in Raleigh North Carolina and is also a Class of 2024 prospect. With a commitment from 7-foot 300-pound Peyton Marshall it’s highly unlikely Mizzou manages to secure signatures of Burns and Quaintance. The purpose of the report is to update those who follow Mizzou but might be unaware of the recruiting portion. As I wrote somewhere the State of Missouri was once flyover country, prospects from all around the nation flew over as they made their way to basketball programs in other parts of the nation. I believe that’s now all changed thanks in part to coach Dennis Gates.

Biggest rival

For most in Laker Nation the answer is easy, the team sharing Crypto.com arena with them. Although the Clippers have certainly had a great deal of success the last few seasons Los Angeles remains a Laker town. The Clippers have their share of fans and some of them might believe the Lakers are their biggest rival. Apparently that is not the case for some, one writer in particular claims the rivalry question resides in Boston. The teams faced one another numerous times during the Showtime era, the last few years not so much.

In 2008 the Celtics beat the Lakers to win the NBA Championship. The Lakers won the Western Conference and the championship the next season winning but didn’t face the Celtics, instead they won over the Magic 4 games to 1. In 2019 the Lakers tied the Celtics for the most championships in the NBA, they would face the Heat and won over them for number 17. In the Showtime era of the 1980’s it was almost routine the Lakers won in the west and the Celtics in the east and the two teams would face one another for the NBA Championship. However the rivalry is much older, it goes back to the Celtics of Bill Russell and Sam Jones who would fact the Lakers of Jerry West and Elgin Baylor.

Two of him

I will make a couple of statements at the beginning of this about Bill Walton. First of all see ESPN’s 30 for 30 video production on his life and career, the visual picture they portray is much better than presented here. Mention his name and those born after 1990 might say, “Isn’t he the college basketball television analyst, you know the one with tie died shirts. He’s always talking about the Rock band the Grateful Dead when not discussing the game, did this guy ever play?” My answer is yes however there is the high school/UCLA version and the Walton who played in the NBA, that’s the problem. With the exception of a few years with the Blazers some unfamiliar with him decide “If Walton played basketball he couldn’t have been very good.” That’s the problem we tend to focus entirely on one’s NBA play to decide if someone can or cannot play the game. Walton led Helix High School in San Diego to 30-0 seasons twice.

In 1969-70 his senior year at Helix Walton averaged 29 points and 25 rebounds. This is a direct quote regarding his days at UCLA, “I was John Wooden’s easiest recruit. I became his worst nightmare. I drove the poor guy to an early death when he was 99.” It was a difficult time while Walton was enrolled at UCLA, the Vietnam war was raging and the civil rights movement was very much in the forefront of the nightly news. Walton was arrested in a demonstration against the war while at UCLA which certainly didn’t endear him to his coach. Despite the bumps in the road at UCLA Walton would go on to be drafted by the Blazers, in 1977 he was the leader as the team won it’s only NBA championship to date. Later he was beset by a series of injuries that curtailed the balance of his career. Despite the injury bug he was named league MVP in 1978 and in 1986 was NBA Sixth Man of the Year while a member of the Celtics. See the ESPN 30 for 30 telecast, there is so much more detail of Bill Walton that anyone born after 1990 is not aware.