A likely lottery choice in the NBA draft is 6'7" Ohio State point guard Evan Turner, the college Player of the Year, from the West Side of Chicago. I may have watched him play as a 6th grader against my kid's elementary school team, which was pretty funny.
This kid was about 4" taller than anybody else on the court and infinitely more coordinated. But instead of having him set up inside as a center and shoot on every play like Wilt Chamberlain in 1962, he played point guard. He was determined to be a good teammate and get them the ball to shoot. So, he'd whip these amazing no look passes to his 12-year-old teammates, which, unfortunately, tended to bounce off their surprised faces before they could even get their hands up. On one fast break he grabbed a rebound and did that John Stockton move where he took one dribble then shotputted the ball right off the dribble without putting both hands on it the length of the court to a teammate sprinting downcourt, who, sadly, didn't expect it, so the ball hit him on the back of the head.
You could see why athletes of that caliber spend most of their time on AAU traveling all-star teams rather than playing for their schools.
The funny thing, though, is that although Turner is the right age and from the right place to be the kid I saw a decade ago, the more videos of him I watch, the more I think the kid I saw wasn't Evan Turner. Nor was he likely Derrick Rose, a Chicago contemporary, who was a recent #1 draft pick overall. So that just goes to show how steep the pyramid of talent is. Turner and Rose are better than the kid I saw.
Evan Turner better put on some weight in the upper body or he'll got knocked around like a rag doll in the NBA.
ReplyDeleteHe's got that skinny "tweener" body - not quite physical or explosive enough to be a true NBA shooting guard or small forward, but too gangly to play point guard and keep up with the speedsters. There's a long line of tweeners that were all-galaxy in college before becoming near washouts in the NBA because they couldn't find a position (Ed O'Bannon, Mark Macon, Joe Forte, Adam Morrison etc.)
Evan Turner should look to Devin Harris, Penny Hardaway or Jason Terry as a model of play, but he will NOT be the second coming of Magic Johnson as some people are predicting...
ReplyDeleteEvan Turner better put on some weight in the upper body and legs or he'll get knocked around like a rag doll in the NBA. He's got that skinny "tweener" frame - not explosive or athletic enough to play shooting guard or small forward, but too gangly to play point guard and keep up with the small speedsters.
ReplyDeleteThere's a long line of tweeners that were all-galaxy in college but ultimately washed out in the NBA due to not being able to defend a position (Ed O'Bannon, Mark Macon, Adam Morrison, Antonio Daniels, Joe Forte, etc.)
He should look to Devin Harris, Penny Hardaway or Jason Terry as a model of play, but he will NOT be the second coming of Magic Johnson as some people are predicting...
There's a long line of tweeners that were all-galaxy in college but ultimately washed out in the NBA
ReplyDeleteTrue dat.
So that just goes to show how steep the pyramid of talent is.
Yep.
Just because you see three- or four-sigma types on television doesn't mean that you will ever cross paths with one in real life.
The vast majority of folks sit squarely under that big ol' hump in the middle.
Mainly speaks to the reality of early physical development. When one race hits puberty on average two years earlier than the others, how could we expect school-aged accomplishments to be equal?
ReplyDeleteAnd when pro opportunities are based on school-aged accomplishments, how could we not expect a disparity at that level?
It is nothing less than institutional racism.
Turner and his high school team mate Demetri Mcamey were to attend the University of Illinois together. At the last moment Turner choose Ohio State to live closer to father while Demetri came to Illinois.
ReplyDeleteEven though everyone wanted Turner on the team, the prevailing thought at the time was the UofI got the better player. As we know now, Demetri is good - might be a pro someday - but he isn't an Evan Turner.
You continue to show no interest in the strange saga of Jon "Playing While White" Scheyer.
ReplyDeleteWhy not?
Haven't checked his stats against Turner's, but I'll bet they're damned close.
And Scheyer's team won the national championship.
I think you're a little far gone in conceding athletics to blacks. Seems like you want to concede the athletic field to blacks. Why? Where's your pride? Aren't you a little offended at the general wimpiness of white men?
I find it disgusting. And, I'm tired of white men getting physically pushed around. Why aren't you?
Reading about the tallest guy playing guard and not center reminds me that during the time he spent with the Globetrotters before he could enter the NBA, Wilt Chamberlain spent some time playing guard. It was done as a goof, but Wilt said later that the time spent as a guard handling the ball helped him improve his skills for when he actually did move on to the NBA.
ReplyDeletelike i've been saying. you have to compare the participation rates between sports. the talent pool in the biggest sports is so deep. the best guy you ever saw in person, a guy that is so much better than anybody else in the state at the high school level of play, might not even be a bench player at the professional level of play.
ReplyDeletehence, my post about how good at throwing a football you actually have to be, simply to sit on the bench in the NFL. PGA golfers are nowhere close in ability to MLB pitchers or NFL quarterbacks.
speaking of, the broncos took batting practice for fun at broncos spring camp, and tim tebow hit 12 home runs about 400 feet. he hasn't played baseball since high school. maybe tebow and gerhart can "make the right decision" and get out of football before the NFL season starts, since they are "not athletic" and "not prospects" at the NFL level.
in some sports, it's common for the best players to rarely play for their high school.
ReplyDeletelots of high school coaches have to deal with the knowledge that some state level star is going to play the club version of the sport, and never dress for the high school team. playing for the high school is a step backwards for them and will hurt their career because the level of play is too low.
You continue to show no interest in the strange saga of Jon "Playing While White" Scheyer.
ReplyDeleteWhy not?
Haven't checked his stats against Turner's, but I'll bet they're damned close.
As far as NBA success goes, Jon Scheyer does not have the same potential as Evan Turner. It's not even a comparison.
"Potential" in the NBA is closely related to draft status.
ReplyDeleteFirst round picks get guaranteed contracts. This is a powerful incentive to develop a player.
Scheyer is predicted to be a second round pick. No guarantees and no incentive for a team to commit to his development.
Turner is a good player. I think Scheyer I'd better. His draft status is entirely explained by his white skin.
Still no answer to my question. What is this strange investment that white men have in putting down white athletes, Why aren't you rooting for your own kind?
Blacks do.
Intellectual white men on both sides of the political spectrum seem to have reached the same conclusion
ReplyDelete. Throw in the towel and concede the physical life of action to black men.
Sorry, but this strikes me as sick shit.
If it's true that white men cannot compete, the answer isn't surrender. It's changing and finding a way to compete.
I'm really fed up with this notion that sophisticated, intellectual white men should be above the fight for fame, women and glory.
Still no answer to my question. What is this strange investment that white men have in putting down white athletes, Why aren't you rooting for your own kind?
ReplyDeleteBlacks do.
No one is "putting down" white athletes. But, even if Jon Scheyer scores 30ppg, becomes 1st-team all-NBA and makes it on the Olympic team, he'll still be the ONLY White American there.
West Africans are simply the best in the world at the athletic component of high-impact sports like football, basketball and sprinting. It's indisputable.
Whites and East Asians have far higher IQ's and better genes for sociability, organization and monogamy. We also understand science, and can comprehend the totality of empirical evidence showing these things, without getting emotional and making charges about "putting down" white athletes.
This is the essence of HBD. Why are you even on this blog if you don't understand or subscribe to HBD?
I was surprised to see that Turner is a negro. Surprised because youre celebrating him.
ReplyDeleteYou continue to show no interest in the strange saga of Jon "Playing While White" Scheyer.
ReplyDeleteWhy not?
Calm down. Scheyer is Jewish.
West Africans are simply the best in the world at the athletic component of high-impact sports like football, basketball and sprinting. It's indisputable.
ReplyDeleteThere's a famous quote [or an urban legend of a quote], from James Naismith, about how the introduction of bodily contact would ruin the game of basketball.
But David Stern, in the mid-1980s [seeking short-term increases in revenues with the rise of Chuck Daly and the Detroit "Bad Boy" Pistons' brand of ghetto-ball], decided to throw that principle right out the window, and white participation in the NBA quickly plummeted as a result.
Also, the game of football is now vastly [and I mean really exponentially] more violent than it was 50 years ago.
Chuck Bednarik had a reputation as the meanest, nastiest, dirtiest S.O.B. ever to play the game [he flourished in the NFL circa 1949 to 1962], but, in retrospect, when you watch old footage of him on TV, he looks like a great big panty-waist, the way he would sidle up next to a runner and gently "wrestle" him to the ground with a "bear-hug" throw.
Nowadays, with the infraction of "spearing" no longer being called by the officials, coaches teach their players to accelerate to full speed [20+ MPH in both directions = 40+ MPH altogether], lower their helmets, and use their heads as battering rams.
That sort of thing was simply un-heard of in Bednarik's day - the guys back then were way too smart to even think of risking their gray matter in that fashion.
[Heck, back in the day, the game of football was still sufficiently intellectual that a guy like Gerald Ford had a realistic chance at an NFL career if he had wanted it, and Byron White actually did have a brief NFL career.]
Honestly, the game is getting so violent that it is just about too dangerous for white kids who aspire to go to college [asians being almost always too small to compete at the high-school level].
Unless you play in a high-school conference [and a statewide athletic association] where they strictly inforce a prohibition against spearing [and forearm shivers, and any contact to the jaw, etc etc etc], then white parents need to seriously consider what their kids' gray matter might be exposed to if they allow them to participate in the game of high-school football...
[Which is not to say that I think the white kids should go full-blown sissy-fag and play soccer instead, but maybe their parents could at least lobby the state athletic association to get serious about enforcing a ban on spearing.]
I immediately thought of Rick Barry - one of the two or three best basketball players I've ever seen.
ReplyDeleteBarry was even taller and even skinnier than this latest phenom. He was also especially valued in those days because he was white. Nowadays apparently the racial prejudice runs the other way.
The thing that made Barry a success was his ability to adapt. He came out of college as a power forward. He did that for a time in the NBA but didn't like being knocked around by those heavier power forwards. Barry had been a top rebounder early in his career but gave all that up. He became an outside shooter especially in the three point game introduced by the ABA.
Still later yet he became the best foul shooter in the league. He began to try bad shots that would draw fouls.
When he played for the Golden Gate Warriors he managed to have all the young black players feed him the ball rather than shoot themselves. He became a scoring machine and they won an improbable championship. Alas the next year there was a race based revolt against Barry and they lost.
The lesson is that its not physiques or reflexes alone that determine success - it's also how you adapt.
Gerald Ford was never an intellectual. LBJ's famous 1960's comment that "Ford must have played too much football without a helmet" was equally true back in the 1930's. Ford was denied entry to law school several times despite graduating from Michigan simply because he was not smart enough. He was a mediocrity who got along with people of all political persuasions, and ultimately one who stood for little of importance. His dishonesty while serving on the Warren Commission was a precursor to his decision not to fully investigate Watergate and Nixon's role. (Nixon didn't send those guys in. Who did? Why? What were they after?) Ford did not think the country deserved honest answers. We, as a nation, deserved better men than Gerald Ford.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, offensive football is a far more sophisticated game today than ever before. Today's top high school qb's in passing conferences are asked to make more split second decisions than even college qb's of the early 80's.
"You're new to Sailer, aren't you?"
ReplyDeleteNot at all. Sailer is for the white tribe. (Not that there's anything wrong with that).
Yeah, Scheyer is better than Turner, but everybody KNOWS The professor is better than Scheyer!!!
ReplyDeleteGerald Ford was never an intellectual.
ReplyDeleteDude - compared to a Ron Artest, Gerald Ford was a veritable Fields Medal winner.
"Haven't checked his stats against Turner's, but I'll bet they're damned close."
ReplyDeleteNo offense, but you guys don't know shit about the NBA.
Scheyer isn't even close to being in Turner's league. There are very few guys IN THE WORLD at his size with his ability to create off the dribble. Scheyer can't create his own shot.
That's what the NBA game is. If you can get your own offense, you're a star. If you can't you're a journeyman supporting player.
That's what the NBA game is.
ReplyDeleteThat's what the modern NBA game is [since they stopped enforcing the rulebook, about 20 years ago].
In the classical era, however [back when they still enforced the rulebook], there was plenty of room on the roster for guys who needed to run through a few screens before they could get off their shots.