NBA Jayhawks prove disappointing for Nystrom
Former players aren’t stepping up in pro play
Thor Nystrom explains how former Jayhawk basketball players, like Wayne Simien and Julian Wright, are failing to show promise in the NBA.
By Thor Nystrom
Wednesday, February 27th, 2008
Cleveland traded Drew Gooden to Chicago on the NBA’s trading deadline last week. By most accounts, his inclusion in the trade was as much attributable to balancing salaries as it was to the Bulls actually wanting him. His mental lapses and defensive inadequacies had grown to the point that the Cavaliers felt that they had to give him away in a trade. They acquired an increasingly ineffective center who has a terrible contract and can’t play offense (Ben Wallace) and a vastly overpaid wing who can shoot and do nothing else (Wally Sczerbiak). Most NBA experts believed Cleveland upgraded at the power forward position simply by getting Chicago to toss Joe Smith into the deal.
For me, this further increases the disappointment of current Jayhawks in the NBA. We have one of the premier programs in college basketball, but only one player who is currently a key player on a good NBA team. And even Paul Pierce was merely a good player on a terrible team until Boston imported Ray Allen and Kevin Garnett before the season.
Is anyone else at least slightly disappointed?
My buddy C.J., a former Kansan sports columnist, is a huge basketball fan and Jayhawk fanatic. As a Kansas native without a local NBA squad to support, he roots for teams based on former Jayhawks that the franchise employs. He has been a Bulls advocate for the last few years because of Kirk Hinrich and he has also rooted for the Celtics because of Pierce.
I am from Minnesota and am therefore a diehard Timberwolves fan. Because my team decided to trade Garnett before the season and tank to acquire a high draft pick, I knew I had to root for losses for the good of the team. So I decided to try a form of the “C.J. Method” of NBA fandom.
Instead of rooting for teams, which would have amounted to sports bigamy and a form of cheating on my Timberwolves, I threw my allegiances behind Hinrich, Pierce, Gooden, Nick Collison, Raef LaFrentz, Scot Pollard, Jacque Vaughn, Wayne Simien and Julian Wright.
What a disappointing year it has been for C.J. and me.
Outside of Pierce and the Celtics, it hasn’t been pretty. And if the T-Wolves haven’t been stupid enough to botch KG’s prime by surrounding him with mediocre players before giving him away bargain-style, it would be a lost season for Jayhawk NBA fans.
Cleveland has grown tired of Gooden and it is far from certain that he will fit in with the defensive-minded Bulls. Hinrich has inexplicably turned into a below average player on the NBA’s most disappointing team. His points per game are at their lowest since his rookie year, his assist numbers are the lowest of his career and his outside shooting has been bad, 32 percent from beyond the arc, by far the worst of his career.
The rest is merely mediocrity, or worse: Nick Collison is a decent backup post player on one of the NBA’s worst teams, Seattle, and hasn’t shown many signs of being able to turn the corner into a good starter. LaFrentz showed evidence early in his career with Denver that could be developed into an All-Star player, but injuries robbed him of his athleticism and stamina and he hasn’t been an effective player in six years. The former Jayhawk star hasn’t seen the court much as an oft-hurt backup center on Portland the last two years.
Vaughn and Pollard are longtime backups. Pollard, an NBA journeyman, cheers Pierce on from the bench with the Celtics. Nobody knows what kind of player Julian Wright will turn into, but he will have to significantly improve his shooting and ball-handling to turn into an effective player. Simien was released by the Timberwolves, the second-worst team in the league, after being a throw-in on a trade from Miami right before the season started. He is unemployed and his NBA future looks bleak.
I doubt this trend will reverse soon. The odds seem high that Darrell Arthur, Brandon Rush, Sherron Collins and other NBA hopefuls on the Jayhawk roster will eventually become nothing more than role players in “The League.” Until Bill Self starts heavily recruiting those “one and done” type prospects such as Kevin Durant, Greg Oden or Michael Beasley, I would expect that to continue.
I suppose it is selfish to be disappointed in the current crop of professionals. We do, after all, have Pierce and the Celtics to root for. Boston is 43-12; the best record in the NBA.
But I can’t help but feel a bit of indignation that the other Jayhawks haven’t come through in my time of need. With Hinrich and Gooden’s regressions, Wright’s inability to crack the Hornets rotation, and the others’ mediocrity, it has been a long year for Jayhawk NBA fans.
Hawk Nation now has only one hope for its professional basketball fix: a lengthy playoff run by the Celtics that pushes Pierce further into the NBA spotlight.
—Edited by Madeline Hyden
Discussion
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If you're first and foremost a KU fan, I don't understand the preoccupation with how our former players perform in the NBA. Are you saying you want Bill Self to recruit Durant, Oden, and Beasley types? Guys who play for one year, giving little back to the University while using it as an easy stepping stone to the NBA? I'd rather have hard-working, selfless players like Russell Robinson and Darnell Jackson, who take pride in playing for KU. Yes, it'd be nice if Hinrich, Gooden, and the others were NBA all-stars. But in the grand scheme of things, so what? Rock Chalk...
Heinrich would be an All-Star on a decent team.
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