SH Blog: Reggie Evans vital to Brooklyn Nets success
“I could score the ball!” Evans said emphatically about his past. “I’ve just been a role player ever since I came into the league. I used to score the ball growing up. Rebounding, it didn’t really get to a focal point with me until I got to probably junior college. When they were like ‘Oh, you’re leading the conference in rebounding and leading the nation.’ That’s when it got to be a focal point, but I didn’t stop scoring the basketball until I got to the NBA. Growing up, I used to put it in the hole.”
Not every player can make this kind of sacrifice for the good of his team; for most people it would mean altering their mindset completely. With Evans it was just part of his development as a player and person, which is what makes his style so compelling to watch.
“You can’t really say enough about Reggie,” said Brook Lopez, Evans’ teammate, who hauled in 11 rebounds last night himself. “He has an incredible nose for the ball and he goes after it every time. It’s something that I try to emulate and you know he’s gonna come out and play every night.”
As a result of the rugged style and reckless abandon with which he plays the game, Evans will never be an All-Star. Heck, he’s not even going to be a guy who gets ink in the papers 99.9% of the time; when you have Deron Williams dropping 14 dimes, Brook Lopez scoring 22 points and grabbing 11 rebounds and Jerry Stackhouse deciding he’s going to hit 4-of-5 3-point attempts against the Knicks, it’s tough as hell to get any ink at all.
If you’ve gotten this far, you’re already aware that Evans isn’t concerned about the fame and the glory. Watch him play for one minute and you could probably figure that out. But just because he’s willing to do the things that not many other players want to do or are capable of doing doesn’t mean that he doesn’t want to leave his mark on this league in his own way.
“You just got to find a way to be a contributor to the game,” explained Evans following an above average, 4 point evening. “You look at Dennis Rodman, you look at Ben Wallace and both of them won a championship and they weren’t even scoring. There’s a lane for us and to be honest, I’m trying to carve my own lane by doing this.”
If the stars align and Evans finds himself on a championship contending team (could Brooklyn be that team?!), Evans will be vital to it’s success.
Even if not many people want to pay much attention to his effective, yet unorthodox, game.
Jeremy Bauman is a 2011 Indiana University alum who is an aspiring scout and shooting coach. After covering last June’s NBA finals for this site, he’ll be blogging for SheridanHoops.com during the 2012-13 basketball season. Follow him on Twitter.