Basketball from a fans perspective

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He repeats the same story

Stephen A. Smith continues to repeat the same story with no one confirming it. He mentioned a portion of this on Wednesday after the brilliant game Tyrese Haliburton played in the Pacers victory. SAS claims without offering any proof he wanted his Knicks to draft the point guard in 2020. He took this one step further indicating he’d informed a member of the team they should draft the Iowa State prospect. What actually occured for the Knicks with pick number 8 in the first round?  

They decided to choose Obi Toppin now a member of the Pacers. With pick 12 the Kings chose Haliburton, as for the 2022 trade that brought him to Indiana I am unable to explain the basis for it. He was a reserve player for the Kings his rookie year and was traded to the Pacers in the middle of his second year. If SAS has the NBA connections he claims and he offered his belief they should draft Haliburton what happened? I am not accusing him of lying about the series of events. I do believe this might have occurred, SAS is embellishing how the events unfolded.

Two chances

After the Pacers 130-121 victory over the Knicks I can state the loser can still win the series. The Knicks have two chances, slim and none and guess what…slim just left town. A friend posed the question, “Is Tyrese Haliburton a super star?” I am not prepared to fully address the question in detail however his team’s victory in Game 4 may have proven the point. The number that stands out is 0 turnovers in 38 minutes on the court for the Pacers point guard. Beyond that was a filled box score for Haliburton, 32 points with 12 rebounds, 15 assists and 4 steals. Although he led the way this was a team victory for the Pacers, Pascal Siakam contributed 30 points.

It wasn’t just these two the Pacers represented starters and reserves. Once again the Knicks couldn’t figure out a method to slow down their swift opposition. I heard a member of the media make this statement which has me thinking maybe he’s correct. He said, “Jalen Brunson is a very good basketball player, he just might not be the best for the Knicks.” I foresee the Pacers close this series off tonight, they will face the Thunder. This will be interesting to see the best defensive team (Thunder) versus the best offensive team (Pacers) for the 2025 NBA Championship. Sidebar here: Knicks coach Tom Thibodeau is one of those coaches who lives and breathes NBA basketball, this series has caused me to question his coaching strategy.

It’s never occurred

I conducted a deep dive on NBA MVP’s to discover if it’s ever occurred in the past. I found several names, players who won MVP’s and were later traded. A partial list would be Wilt Chamberlain, Oscar Roberston and Kareem Abdul Jabbar. We could add Bill Walton and Moses Malone to our list, there might be others but I’m stopping there. I couldn’t locate a single player traded who later became NBA MVP, that is until now. Shai-Gilgeous Alexander was recently named league MVP, most probably don’t remember that’s not the way it started. In 2018 SGA was made the 11th pick in that year’s draft, later that same day his rights were traded to the Clippers.

He would spend his rookie year with the Clippers before a July 2019 trade sent him to the Thunder. Similar to a flower in bloom once he moved to Oklahoma City his game begin to excel. The last three seasons saw him score at a 30+ point a game clip but it wasn’t just the scoring he also played stellar defense and his assist total began to rise as well. His generation loves the 3-point shot but not SGA, he can shoot it but prefers the mid-range game. This month SGA was named the NBA’s most Valuable Player, should his Thunder team win the NBA Championship it might be a two-for for SGA. By the way I failed to mention who went to the Clippers in exchange for SGA, it was Paul George. One publication termed it “The Worst Trade in NBA History.”

The secret game

If I informed you Duke played HBCU North Carolina Central you’d probably think nothing unusual here. What if I told you the game occurred in March of 1944 at the height of a segregated America. At that time there existed a huge divide between black and white citizens of the nation. This separation of races extended to the point of even separate water fountains but that was just the tip of the iceberg. The history is unclear how the basketball game came about but Duke University would play North Carolina College for Negros as it was named then. The date was March 12, 1944, and the game was played at North Carolina Central’s gym which still exists today. In accordance with the laws of that period the game had to be played in secret, if word got out the Durham Police would have been dispatched and arrested all parties involved.

The game was kept from the public and even now 81 years later it is mind boggling no one, white or black discussed it ahead of play. As for the game North Carolina Central won 88-44. The significance of course the game defied the racial segregation of the period and perhaps was one of the first integrated basketball games played in the south. The coach for North Carolina Central was the late John McClendon who learned the game from its inventor James A. Naismith while at Kansas University. McClendon went on to success at a number of coaching stops. His Tennessee State team won the NAIA Championship three consecutive years, in addition McClendon is twice enshrined in the Naismith Hall of Fame and the College Basketball Hall. We cannot fully embrace the impact this game might have made in making for change in America.