Basketball Fiend

Posts Tagged ‘Arizona’

Last year Adam Yauch (better known as MCA of the Beastie Boys) released a documentary about eight high school basketball players who travel to Rucker Park in New York to play in the Elite 24 (a game showcasing the best high school players in the nation). You may have heard of a few of these guys. Michael Beasley, Kevin Love, Brandon Jennings, Tyreke Evans, Donte Greene, Jerryd Bayless, Kyle Singler, Lance Stephenson. Some are playing in the NBA. Others were drafted in Thursday night’s draft. Others will be in the NBA soon.

I know I’m a year late on this, but the documentary was terrific. It captured not only the meaning of Rucker Park, but also the perspectives of some of the best young basketball players in the country.

Of particular interest to me: Tyreke Evans and Donte Greene, two of the hottest basketball prospects in the nation in 2007 (when the doc was filmed). Now both of them are Sacramento Kings.

As a Kings fan trying to figure out why the Kings drafted Evans over Ricky Rubio, watching interviews with Evans as a high schooler was enlightening; the basketball equivalent of reading a Rolling Stone feature on a favorite band. It sounds weird, but watching Yauch’s doc was like getting to know Evans for the first time. I learned more about him in this hour and thirty-six minute documentary than in all of the nationally-televised college games, YouTube clips, and Internet features combined.

If you’re a basketball fan and you have an hour and a half to kill this weekend, I highly recommend watching Gunnin’ For That #1 Spot. You can catch it on Hulu or, if you want a more permanent copy, you can order it from the Gunnin’ Movie website.

If not, I’ve got you covered. After the jump you’ll find a quick breakdown of each player (Greene, Bayless, Love, Jennings, Singler, Beasley, Evans, and Stephenson) and what the documentary teaches us about him.

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The NBA Draft is rapidly approaching and there are still a lot of questions left to be answered about the incoming prospects. Because of the uncertainty in this draft, I’m constantly trying to find new ways to evaluate these incoming players. Which is why I decided to construct this list, an evaluation of the top college programs and their ability to produce NBA talent.

To create the list I looked over each current NBA roster, documented the university of each player, and used a list of criteria (including: number of players, quality of players, number of quality players, cumulative All-Star games, and cumulative NBA titles) to determine the order.

Because I didn’t want to end up looking like Christian Bale in The Machinist, I limited my research to current NBA players and made the list a Top 10, with three honorable mentions. I had a lot of input (from different people, including my podcast mate Joe Lee) along the way and I made a lot of changes.

I’ve added a short analysis for each college program on the list. If you’d like a more detail check out the Basketball Fiend Podcast: Episode 3. It’s a podcast with Joe Lee and myself devoted exclusively to analyzing this list. And don’t forget to leave comments. (Just not ones like, “Where’s Michael Jordan for UNC?” or “How could you forget Magic Johnson?”. Remember it’s a list of current NBA players.)

I look forward to hearing what you have to say.

Honorable Mention

These three programs were just on the cusp of making my Top 10. All three are programs with a history of producing good NBA players, but they just didn’t have what it takes to make it past the programs above them.

Kentucky

Number of current NBA players: 8
Cumulative All-Star appearances (current players): 1
Cumulative NBA titles (current players): 3
Top 5: Rajon Rondo, Tayshaun Prince, Chuck Hayes, Kelenna Azubuike, Keith Bogans

Hopefully Coach Cal won’t send lightning down on my head for this one, but the truth is this: the Kentucky program has been slack in recent years in terms of turning out top notch talent. Yes, Rajon Rondo and Tayshaun Prince (at the top) are solid players who have won championships with their respective teams, but the talent thins out considerably after those two players. Chuck Hayes, Kelenna Azubuike, Keith Bogans, and Nazr Mohammed are role players (fairly good ones, yes, but still role players) and Randolph Morris and Jamaal Magloire are barely used, end-of-the-bench guys. Hardly a group that is going to set the world on fire.

Calipari has a very good recruiting class this year so the Wildcats should be back in the Top 10 soon. But this season they’re honorable mention status. Sorry, Big Blue.

The rest of the list - including two more honorable mentions - can be found after the jump.

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Last night at 1:30 a.m., when you were all asleep in your beds, Charles Barkley was out driving, potentially drunk.

According to ESPN.com, Barkley was pulled over on suspicion of DUI by the Scottsdale police. Barkley, who smelled of alcohol and failed field sobriety tests according to the police, was pulled over after running a stop sign in Scottdale’s Old Town area.

Following the sobriety tests, Barkley was arrested. He declined to take a breath test and was instead subjected to a blood test, the results of which have yet to be released.

After being processed, Barkley was released. Since his car was impounded, he left by cab.

In a statement following the arrest, Barkley sounded classy and contrite, saying,

“I am disappointed that I put myself in that situation. The Scottsdale police were fantastic. Now it is a legal matter and I will not comment any further as it is a legal matter.”

From the statement it sounds to me like either a) Barkley’s been around the DUI block before, or b) he has an excellent publicist. 

We’ll keep you posted on how this turns out.