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More Curry Hype
Here's more hype about high school junior center Eddy Curry via TSN's
Brick Oettinger, who claims in his column yesterday that Curry would go No.1
overall in this year's NBA draft if he were eligible.
"Heading the truly elite juniors was the absolutely incredible 6-11, 290
to 300-pound South Holland (Ill.) Thornwood center Eddy Curry, who carried
the Illinois Gold team to the title game, where they fell 78-65 to the
extremely talented and much deeper Michigan Mustangs. Curry currently lists
an array of collegiate possibilities, including Connecticut, Duke,
Cincinnati, DePaul Kentucky, Illinois, Kansas, Iowa State and North
Carolina; however, it's VERY, VERY unlikely that he'll ever play a minute of
college basketball, since we believe he would be the first player selected
if he were in the NBA draft THIS year! Will he turn down $3 million dollars
(at least) a year in order to risk serious injury playing a season or two of
collegiate ball?
As for Curry's game, it is far more advanced than Shaquille O'Neal's was
at the same stage. Eddy is stunningly athletic for his size, his hands are
sure, and he already possesses sophisticated -- make that unstoppable --
power moves, an excellent jumphook and a reliable (albeit not automatic)
jumpshot to mid-range. Additionally, he plays very hard and intelligently at
both ends of the court. He's simply the real deal, more than worth the
price of admission, and his future NBA wars with Shaq should be fantastic.
At the Show-Me Shootout, Curry wasn't able to lead Illinois Gold to the
championship, because the Michigan Mustangs also have a future
superstar, 6-4 junior wing guard Kelvin Torbert of Flint (Mich.)
Northwestern. The only backcourt scorer in the Class of 2001 who rates
with Torbert is the remarkable 6-3 Camden (N.J.) High combination guard
Dajuan Wagner, who wasn't at the Columbia (Mo.) tournament. Torbert has it
all; he's physically strong, quite intense, a great leaper who hangs on his
pullup jumpshot a la Michael Jordan, dangerous three-point shooter, good
ballhandler (though not a point guard), and hustling defender most of the
time.
****
Here is on Oettinger on the McDonald's game.
MCDONALD’S GAME LACKS DEFENSE AND FUNDAMENTALS
The annual McDonald’s All America Game, played this year at Boston’s
FleetCenter, featured a sensational crowd (a record 18,698) and lots of
talented players. Unfortunately, what we saw was "showtime" rather than good
basketball. Little defense was played by either side, and the shot selection
was consistently abysmal. Many times, the ball was not passed when it should
have been; the passes that were thrown often contained mustard and chili.
Blocking out on the boards apparently is an art that only a few Big Macs are
familiar with. And the free throw shooting (below 50% overall) wasn’t worthy
of a junior high team.
Our proposal is to limit the game to 20 players (rather than 24 this
year), guarantee each participant 10 minutes of playing time instead of 12,
and strongly encourage the coaches of the East and West teams to play to
win, rather than play to amuse. That might help a little bit anyway.
This year, the West team had an easy time whipping the East by a 146-120
count. The West led by five points after one quarter, 11 points at halftime,
21 points at the end of the third period, and as much as 33 points twice in
the final stanza. They had 30 more rebounds (84-54) and 20 more made field
goals (67-47) than the East, even though the latter had just as many
players as the West (nine) whom we rank among the nation’s top 20 senior
prospects. What should have been a good, competitive game wasn’t that at
all.
Below, we’ve put the McDonald’s Game participants into categories,
based upon our assessment of the calibre of their performances. The
categories are excellent, good, fair, poor, and insufficient data (for
unsigned 6-9 combo forward Garner Meads, who was injured in practice and
only made a cameo fourth-quarter appearance). College selections are in
parentheses following each name.
EXCELLENT
6-9 Ind. C Zach Randolph (Mich. St.): MVP, 23 pts.,
15 rebs. (West)
GOOD
6-5 Cal. WG DeShawn Stevenson (Kans.): 25 pts, 12-19
FGs (West)
6-9 Ill. PF Andre Brown (DePaul): 20 pts. (West)
6-9 Ill. SF Darius Miles (St. John’s or NBA): 17
pts. (West)
6-2 La. PG/WG Chris Duhon (Duke): 10 pts., 7 assists
(West)
6-9 Pa. PF/SF Eddie Griffin (Set. Hall): 19 pts.
(East)
6-9 Miss. SF Darius Rice (undecided): 24 pts. (East)
5-9 N.Y. PG Andre Barrett (Set. Hall): 7 pts., 12
assists (East)
FAIR
6-3 Mich. PG Marcus Taylor (Mich. St.): 14 pts.,
5-16 FGs (West)
6-7 Ala. SF Gerald Wallace (Ala. or NBA): 15 pts.,
10 rebs. (East)
6-3 N.C. WG Scooter Sherrill (N.C. St.): 12 pts.
(East)
6-10 Ind. PF/SF Jared Jeffries (Ind.): 10 pts., 5-13
FGs (West)
6-6 S.C. WG Jerome Harper (undecided): 10 pts.
(East)
6-1 N.Y. PG Omar Cook (St. John’s): 8 pts., 3-10 FGs
(East)
6-8 Cal. PF/SF Travon Bryant (undecided): 7 pts.
(West)
6-10 Texas PF/C Alton Ford (Hous. ?): 8 pts., 3-9
FGs (West)
6-9 Ala. PF/C Mario Austin (Miss. St.): 9 pts.
(East)
6-9 Texas PF Brian Boddicker (Texas): 8 pts. (West)
6-1 N.Y. PG Taliek Brown (Conn.): 11 pts. (East)
6-10 S.C. PF/C Rolando Howell (So. Car.): 5 pts.
(East)
POOR
6-8 Mass. SF/PF Scott Hazelton (Conn.): 0 pts., 0-4
FGs (East)
6-2 Wash. PG Luke Ridnour (Ore.): 2 pts., 6
turnovers )West)
7-6 Mass. C Neil Fingleton (UNC): 0 pts, 3 blocked
shots (East)
INSUFFUCIENT DATA
6-9 Utah PF/SF Garner Meads (undecided): 2 pts.
(West)
Alton Ford signed in November with Houston, but there are rumors that he
may request a release from the hometown Cougars, since head coach Clyde
Drexler has resigned the post unexpectedly. Note that Houston does not
have to grant the release.
USA JUNIOR NATIONAL TEAM FORTUNATE TO WIN HOOP SUMMIT
The Nike Hoop Summit at Conseco Fieldhouse in Indianapolis had some
heads-down play, too, but not nearly as much as the McDonald’s Game, and the
defense was considerably more intense. Consequently, the game was a
barnburner that the USA Junior National Select Team was fortunate to win
98-97 over an International Select Team.
Note that each team was missing two players it expected to have. For the
USA, both 6-9 Eddie Griffin and 6-9 Mario Austin dropped out for
"personal reasons." Griffin recently was expelled from Roman Catholic
High in Philadelphia due to an off-campus fight with a teammate, and
this likely was a factor in his decision not to play in Indianapolis.
For the International Team, 7-5 center Yao Ming was unable to play when the
coach of the Chinese National Team reportedly moved the start of team
practices for the Olympics up a week, so there was a conflict.
Also, talented 6-9 forward Andrei Kirilenko ran into complications when
trying to leave Russia and was thus unable to play.
The most impressive players in the Nike Hoop Summit are listed below, by
team, in order. Note that had the International Team not been victimized by
some "cheap" calls near the end of the game, they probably would have
emerged victorious, despite the on-paper strength of the USA Team.
MOST IMPRESSIVE USA PLAYERS
Zach Randolph: 24 pts., 8 rebs.
Darius Miles: 15 pts., 8 rebs.
Omar Cook: 14 pts., 6 assists, 4 turnovers
Chris Duhon: 9 pts., 6 assists, drew 2 charges
Darius Rice: 9 pts. in 14 minutes
Marcus Taylor: 11 pts., 4 assists, 3 turnovers, 5-13
FGs
MOST IMPRESSIVE INTERNATIONAL PLAYERS
6-11 Nigerian C Olumide Oyedeji (NBA-bound): 19
pts., 13 rebs., 3 assists
6-2 French PG Tony Parker: 20 pts., 7 assists
6-8 Yugoslav SF Goran Cakic: 6-7 FGs, transition
finisher
6-9 Slovenian PF/SF Bostjan Nachbar: Hit clutch free
throws
6-9 Va./Senegalese PF Abdou Diame (Aub.): 11 pts. in
16 minutes
6-6 Spanish WG Sergi Vidal: Good handle
5-11 Croatian PG Marko Popovic: 11 pts., 4 assists
* Oyedeji is a 240-pound specimen who could develop
into another Hakeem
Olajuwon! Parker, whose father is a former USA
player, is being recruited by
major collegiate powers such as Kentucky.
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