Basketball from a fans perspective

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Bits n Pieces of information

The Maui Invitational Tournament is scheduled to be played November 25 through the 27. You might remember it could not be played in Maui last season due to the devastating fire suffered by the island residents. Due to the fire last season the tournament was held but moved to Honolulu. Scheduled to play this November are Memphis which will face UConn, Colorado and Michigan State, Auburn against Iowa State and finally Dayton against North Carolina. Those are the initial games and one of those teams named will find itself the tournament winner on the 27. As for the location the games will return to the Lahaina Civic Center which was spared damage last year despite the tremendous loss of life and property all around the island.

The comment by Anthony Edwards managed to upset Magic Johnson. Edwards said this: “Michael Jordan was the only skilled player back in the day,” that statement did not sit well with Magic Johnson. This from Johnson “I never respond to a guy who’s never won a championship…He didn’t win a college championship, I don’t even know if he won a high school championship.” I can answer the question for Johnson, Edwards did win a state championship for Holy Spirit Prep in 2018. In Georgia private, independent and parochial schools play separately from public schools, they compete in the Georgia Independent School Association. My two cents worth, Edwards is only 23-years old. The only opportunity for him to see Jordan or anyone else of that era is video. Nothing beats the ability to see that player in action, Edwards certainly couldn't have witnessed anyone of that period except via YouTube.  

I am writing this not upset only offering an explanation of my dilemma and perhaps yours as well. Next season when the new NBA television contract takes effect change will occur in my household. The games on the NBC Network or ESPN no problem, I don’t have Peacock nor do I plan on paying for another streaming service so I will miss those games. The same goes for Amazon although it’s slightly different, Thursday night NBA games cannot begin until after the NFL season is complete. As most are aware Amazon has an NFL agreement in place. In conclusion there will be plenty of NBA games available the question might be…can you the viewer see all of them? Better yet the question might be are you willing to pay more to view them?

Once upon a time younger players would gladly give up their jersey number if a veteran player were acquired that wore the number previously. That was then, this is now at least for Russell Westbrook. As most of you are aware the longtime point guard has worn 0 throughout his NBA career with several teams. He’s now a member of the Nuggets and this is the development, Westbrook says he never approached Christian Braun regarding his jersey number. In any event its been reported Westbrook will sport Nuggets jersey number 4 when the season begins, that’s an interesting development.

Akron 

This is pretty amazing, we might wish to refer to Akron as the basketball capital of America. This northern Ohio city according to the 2022 census contains 188,509 persons certainly not huge, despite that fact check out the talent born in the city. The late Gus Johnson 1983-1987, at the time the power forward position was first described in the NBA he was the model. In addition to that fact Johnson’s greatest years were the period he played for the Baltimore Bullets 1963-1973.

Johnson had a high school teammate the late Nate Thurmond 1941-2016. Thurmond a longtime NBA center spent his best NBA years with the Warriors and Bulls. The next two profiled were born at the same Akron hospital, they are Steph Curry and LeBron James. For me this is the most interesting portion of this story, Johnson and Thurmond are enshrined in the Naismith Hall of Fame. Curry and James are awaiting retirement when the clock begins ticking for them, imagine four hall of fame players born in one average sized population Midwest city. There are many others born in the city but I will close now with Larry Nance Jr. currently with the Hawks also was born in Akron.

That term used again

Dick Vitale was looking at the 2024-25 college basketball season, his outlook focused on mid-major schools. This is not intended as a criticism of Vitale only the term mid-major, what does it describe. Is it student enrollment, conference affiliation or some other barometer of measurement? We can easily eliminate at least one of the terms described…student enrollment. As an example Notre Dame University long a football and basketball power nationally has only 13,000+ students.

As most are aware the Fighting Irish are considered a major player, contrast this with Loyola University Chicago which contains 16,000+ students yet is termed a mid-major by the sports media. It was once written major schools consisted of Big 10, Big XII, SEC, ACC and Pac-12 conference. Unless there is a revival in the future the Pac-12’s gone out of business. If we use football as the basis this is the interesting part UCF, Cincinnati and Houston didn’t accomplish anything so to speak in football except move to “major” conference. I’m a party of one, I alone cannot force sports media to cease using the term. It’s my belief mid-major is no longer valid.