As a young college coach, I had the great fortune to meet and become extremely close to one of the most powerful figures in basketball, sneaker kingpin Sonny Vaccaro. Like many coaches, Sonny gave me my first adidas sneaker contract. But it was a story Sonny once shared with me as a young high school coach working his Nike All-American camp that has stayed with me for over 25 years. The story still resonates with me today as I reflect on
I started on this mission to dig into One and Done with two main goals in mind. The first was to shed light on the issues in a fact-based way, free from rhetoric and bias. For years the entire policy has been discussed in a way that obscures the facts, not clarifies them. The second is to have the policy viewed as more than an argument over what age to draw the line restricting players from entering the league. While I
The National Collegiate Basketball Hall of Fame welcomed two of the sport’s all-time greats as part of its 2014 class on Tuesday. Four-time NBA champion Shaquille O’Neal and two-time NCAA champion Grant Hill joined Darrell Griffith at the top of a very unique and diverse class. The induction ceremony, which will be held in November, will also see Zelmo Beaty, an NAIA star at Prairie View A&M. Additionally, two head coaches LSU’s Dale Brown and Maryland’s Gary Williams—both of whom reached the Final
The Basketball World Cup (formerly known as the World Championship) will be held next summer in Spain, and the U.S. will be sending a team. Who will be on it? Who knows? We’ll have more on that in the upcoming days. As it is 30, elite basketball players (all listed below) will spend the next five days in a Las Vegas training facility with Team USA in a minicamp. Some of the NBA’s brightest young players are in attendance, hoping to show coaching staff
A busy week in the NBA continues to get busier. As the draft boards and playoff scenarios continue to change, we’ll keep you updated every day at 6 O’Clock. Here’s the latest news around the league: [Read more…]
It was an exciting and historic first two rounds of the NCAA Tournament over the weekend, with the blue bloods of college basketball reaching the second week of the tourney along with surprise teams including LaSalle, Wichita State and No. 15 seed Florida Gulf Coast. But what did it really take for the teams to win two, and in LaSalle’s case, three, games last week? [Read more…]
The NBA draft is all about projections and potential. A generation ago, most NBA executives’ strategy was to compare prospects based on their collegiate careers. Then the Fab Five arrived at Michigan, and suddenly the process was flipped upside down. Underclassmen were scrutinized, analyzed and scouted thoroughly by NBA clubs who wanted to get the next big-time prospect. While prospects with high upside are intriguing, they come with more risk than upperclassmen. The lottery is annually dominated by underclassmen, primarily freshmen. [Read
Sheridan Hoops was well-represented at Thursday’s NBA draft in Newark, N.J. We had Joe Kotoch provide a pretty successful mock draft by anyone’s standards. We had Moke Hamilton breaking down a number of trades as he prepares for the firestorm of free agency that will start over the weekend. We had Nick Gibson offering his draft surprises, then following up today with his exhaustive draft grades. And we had yours truly and a trusty video camera, capturing some of the sights and sounds in and