Went to the Big 3 in Dallas last weekend. Here are a few observations.
1. Rules of Big 3 are interesting. Maybe more on that later.
2. Brandon Rush walks like an old man. His knees must really be shot. Felt a little sorry for him.
3. Mario’s team (including Brandon, Julian Wright and Michael Beasley) is not very good. Beasley is the star. Brandon plays sparingly.
4. Rick Mahorn could barely walked and has added about 75 pounds at least.
5. Julian Wright also has gained a bit (who hasn’t). But he can still hoop. Even had a dunk.
6. Also speaking of adding weight, The Iceman, coach of Darnell’s team, is looking his age.
7. Darnell’s team is really good but they lost on a last second shot. They have a chance to win it all. Darnell is sort of like point forward. Not ball handling but passing.
8. While I was waiting for my dinner companion in the hotel, had an opportunity to chat with several of the players and others. Mostly I had about a 20 minute convo with Corey Brewer of Florida fame, winning 2 NC’s. Great convo and nice guy. 13 years in NBA and now coaching for New Orleans. I had to bring up the Las Vegas game in 2007 with KU. He started laughing and said that was one of the toughest losses he had. KU beat NC defending and later repeat NC Florida in OT. Corey Brewer missed a 3-pointer to win the game at the last second. Said that shot still haunts him. We talked about college basketball, coaching, playing and arenas. He said MSG was his favorite arena. Said Kobe was the toughest guy he ever had to guard. He is pretty good friends with Darnell Jackson and the other KU guys. He said his days at Florida were his best. He loved college. Right at the end of the conversation he said something that was a little weird. And I didn’t have a chance to follow up since his ride to the airport was there. He said they all had to leave college. I think he meant that the money was just too good to pass up even though they wanted to stay. He did say he thinks NIL will keep more players in school. He also said he thinks Christian likely to be a lot better player in the NBA than Ochai. They worked out Ochai and still worried about his ball handling skills. He thought Christian had a chance to be really good.
