Great pic. Back in my wanna be journalist days I did a piece and I had Curt Flood as No.2 biggest/most influential sports moments of all time.
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Former UVA target on the move in the NBA.
Obviously a bummer for Keels. Could have used a few more years in college to mature his game and body.
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Who would want to be a PRO ball player? Getting in the door is not even the hard part.
Good luck to the young man!
at this point in his career Justin Anderson would KILL Trevor Keels and where is Jās NBA contract something for the young man to ponder
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Well at least JA put in the work in college, was a 1st round pick and banked some guaranteed money.
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JA is also the first NCAA player to make another NCAA player shit his pants in a game. (The Winslow incident)
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IIRC, JA also lost draft stock and some NBA time due to injuries. So sure JA would love to have the sort of shot Keels appears to have been unprepared for.
I have no issue with Keels and wish him the best. I will just selfishly say this makes me feel a little better about how I felt when I watched a bunch of his high school games. His entire game was below the rim, he wasnāt an elite shooter, and he wasnāt an elite athlete (although he certainly had good general size for a guard and I get why we were interested). Looked like a guy with real potential but nowhere near NBA ready. Seemed like a three year college player to me.
Iām not really going to fault his decision making - and who knows if more years in college was going to meaningfully improve his stock - but it seemed like a big gamble. That said, could still have a great pro career - just may not be in the NBA at this moment.
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I like the point about not knowing about the effect of more years of college, thatās worth keeping in mind. Analytically, itās a tough problem of factoring in what you donāt observe. The guy who doesnāt develop in his first two years in the NBA might have stalled developmentally in college too. The guy who blossomed over four years in college may have developed just as fast if on a NBA roster that whole time. And of course some guys may have done better in college than the NBA.
And I think it is rational for a player to try to maximize the level of investment a team is making in him. This tends to happen more often the earlier someone comes out of college because of better perceptions about potential. The draft makes it a little tricky because it limits the ability for a player to find a fit for a situation. Like landing on the Thunder might be great for some guys because thereās a path to earn a real role early, or it might be terrible for others because they have a million young guys already and need to cut or trade down to the roster limit.
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I know we dont think much of it as fans, but even getting the chance to sign to a summer league team and wear an NBA jersey and represent an NBA team, no matter how brief, must have felt like an insane dream for a 5ā9 filipino kid who was barely mid major until the last summer. Unreal experience for him. Wonder where heāll end up next.
(only 2 players ever with Filipino heritage to ever play in the NBA, Jordan Clarkson and Andray Blatche)
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Great mini tribute to Kihei here. Gotta be special to get that taste and hopefully some loot
I can say when I was done in college I moved to NYC and a year later was playing in some league called USBL which I guess was just under CBA or whatever then. I was easily 3 if not 4 levels away from being an NBA player then and could have played in europe somewhere at the level Kihei will end up (my guess)
Point being the NBA is near impossible to make and Kiehei armaan getting to do summer is special
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Love that post @Hooandtrue youāre spot on. You have to think that Kihei thought about/dreamed about that moment and if you gave him truth serum even on his best day he would have doubted it was possible to trot onto the court as part of an NBA organization. When you think of what Kihei has accomplished itās pretty damn special and is something to be proud of.
Similar to @DFresh11 I bounced around in some pro leagues while in college and then immediately after while playing rugby. I topped out the equivalent of AA baseball to one of the top organizations in Europe. I was never close to sniffing their A side, but it meant all the world to get that moment. During that time I also got some caps with the USA team and even though the moments were brief and I barely got a sniff, I may have taken it fore granted at the time, but looking back it means a ton.
Point being, reaching the top aināt easy. Only 450 or so guys make it in the NBA. Rumble young man Rumble
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Thats it right there Dragon. And the guys you played with and against at all levels knew you were real and as we (sadly) get older thats what matters
I saw Chris Whitney after a Knicks game one time when I went to see Crotty and Bryant for a game. I went over to dap him up and he said ānah man get away you shoot too good for meā. I said Boy, you been in the NBA for 10 years. Get outta here hahaha
Chris got a sneaky 10-12 years in NBA after playing at Clemson my year
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100% real knows real. Those moments like you had with Chris mean the world. Sometimes you donāt get that as a young gun, but thatās the real right there for sure.
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Admittedly, not the point of your post, but Blatche was nationalized, so not really Filipino. Iāll call your Clarkson and raise you Jalen Green, though.
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And Kai Sotto, who is actually from the Philippines, played Summer League with the Magic this year.
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Did not know about Jalen Green. Also discovered another player not included on the list I found: Raymond Townsend. Was on those 70s UCLA teams and played pro.
Aw man. One of my first ādream recruitsā on this forum (as in kid who we whould have never recruited but I was fond of anyways).
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I thought the name rang a bell!
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