Post by MCIGuy on Jun 20, 2005 0:10:48 GMT -5
I never saw Alonzo Mourning play in the Kenner League. In fact during his time at GU I didn’t even know that the KL existed. I didn’t see any of Iverson’s three games in the KL. Nor did I ever catch Steve Francis or Joe Forte there either. And I also admit I never witnessed the infamous performances of Anthony Perry in the Kenner League that got people on the original HoyaTalk board so excited, they started talking as if he was a combo of AI and Sleepy Floyd. So take what I’m about to write with a grain of salt:
I’ve never seen a better performance in person at the Kenner League than the one today by Pat Ewing.
Now this doesn’t mean that Ewing is the best player I’ve ever seen in these games. I can’t make such an irresponsible statement like that off of one game. But the best all around performance? Yeah.
Before I go further here’s a list of players that I can recall seeing suit up for the KL over the years:
Kevin Braswell
Moochie Norris
Othella
Wesley Wilson
David Hawkins – Temple guard
Delonte West
Juan Dixon
Lonny Baxter
Mike Sweetney
Harvey Thomas
Drew Hall
Boumtje Boumtje
Joey Brown
Duane Spencer
Ashanti Cook
Derrick Payne
Courtland Freeman
Hibbert
Victor Samnick
Steve Blake
Jeff Green
Tony Bethel
Darrel Owens
Travis Garrison
TJ Thompson
Ricky Lucas
Darian Townes
Isaiah Swann
Nat Burton
I’m definitely leaving out some pretty good George Mason players; its just that their names escape me at this time. But regardless PE2 looked better than all of them and all the people on the list above. One must take into consideration that a bunch of these guys had bad games when I saw them or simply phoned in their performances. And perhaps Ewing just had the best day of his life tonight.
Okay let me get back to the point. Everything was effortless for the dude. From the warm-ups I could tell I was about to witness something special. He hit outside shots during the warm-ups (Yeah, do that during the game I thought). And then he started putting on his own one-man dunk contest during the “layup” drills. Whoa.
It was telling that Ewing, not Green, was used for the tossup which he won. The first basket of the game came when he put the ball on the floor beating his man, drawing another opponent and then tossing a clean pass behind his head to Jeff who was left wide open for a layup.
Now, I didn’t take notes during the game. I didn’t speak with anyone. I just paid attention. So I’m working only on memory. What I recall is that he hit the VAST MAJORITY of his outside shots. Not just most of hi shots. The vast majority of his perimeter jumpers. This include threes in which he missed only one of the four or five that he took). This meant the medium jumpers in the lane and from the foul line.
He played very good defense in terms of moving his feet and he blocked shots (one of which had the crowd ooohing)
He literally skied for rebounds. I mean the jump in the air and snatch it at a height that no one else could get to..
He handled the rock very well often bringing the bal up the court as if it was nothing at all. He was able to dribble and drive into the lane without difficulty. In fact I don’t recall him turning it over once. Maybe he did have a couple of turnovers but if so they weren’t because of his dribbling. He didn’t expose the ball for others to get a hand on. Now think about this for a moment. With the possible exception of Owens all of the other GU forwards that I have observed in the KL over the years had their moments in which they looked ill suited for ball handling. This includes Bowman, Harvey Thomas, Darian Townes (when he was still a GU recruit), Sweetney, Samnick, etc. Not that these guys didn’t have any skills; they just “fumbled” the ball when they tried to do too much against a stingy enough defense. Heck, Ashanti in the first game tonight turned over the rock a few times during ill advised drives into the teeth of the defense and he’s a guard. Perhaps Ewing just knows his limitations. Perhaps he just has better handle than the other forwards I mentioned above. Whatever the reason he didn’t embarrass himself when the rock was in his hands.
He hustled all game long. He was quick to run out on offense, even quicker to get back on defense. He would battle for rebounds all game long and provide help defense when needed. His motor just kept on running.
He’s a big time finisher. I don’t care if this was a summer game; his finishing abilities are legit. I’ve seen enough times in which our players, even our good ones, don’t finish strong enough when an obstacle is in the way or lurking nearby. They miss a dunk either because of the contact, because of the threat of contact or because the sight of the oncoming defender distracts them. Not this guy. He finishes like a pro. He gets up quickly and throws it down quicker. And if there is some silly defender trying to get in his way that guy’s mud. I smiled when Ewing passed this first test and it was confident the rest of the way that he would keep passing it as the game wore on. Many of you know that’s my main problem with Bowman. He’s so athletic and long but he tends to bounce away from contact most time instead of throwing it down when a defender comes between him and the hoop. If Bowman would at least take the contact and lay it in while drawing a foul I wouldn’t mind so much. After all a basket is a basket whether it comes as a layup or a slam. But Brandon too often doesn’t come close to finishing at all. Sometimes he tries to avoid the contact and misses the basket altogether. Or he will be so meek when trying to score that the refs won’t even call the foul when he gets hit. This is something Bowman must work on. Ewing already has this part of the game conquered. Okay mostly conquered based upon a summer league contest, blah, blah, blah.
Was there one move that really stood out. Maybe the one in which he went coast to coast with the ball and faking out a defender waiting for him in the paint with a slick move that allowed him to score. It was a Pippen-esque maneuver. I wonder when looking at his daddy’s games against the Bulls if he was studying Pip all along. I know that Pip is Owens’ favorite player but unlike Owens Ewing looked very comfortable taking big shots and being the center of attention. Like Egerson in the game I saw last week Ewing didn’t force anything and played very unselfish. But he didn’t shy away from stepping behind that arc and letting the shot go. He’s not a shrinking violet type. I’m just speculating but all of the years growing up with a famous dad and then following in that same dad’s footsteps by playing the same sport, has probably made him accustomed to being in the spotlight and being comfortable with that. There wasn’t any hesitation on his shots. And he knew what he was doing out there.
This game didn’t have the juice of some of the very best Kenner League games I’ve witnessed. I’m definitely sure it couldn’t come close to matching AI’s games or the matchup between Francis and Perry and Forte (of the Tombs) for the championship almost a decade ago. But that was the only thing missing. This kid is a big time player. Or he is at least giving a very good imitation of being one. And that confuses the heck out of me. In high school we knew that he had versatility and was on the brink of making himself a legitimate star player. But he didn’t get to that star level by the time his high school career at National Christian was over. He didn’t look anything close to being this polished when he played in the KL a couple of years ago. And all reports from out of Indiana was that he was a disappointment or at least badly misused by Davis. But Davis couldn’t be that blind and stupid when it comes to this guy could he? He must have seen the kid do this in practice. I can’t imagine Ewing just learned these abilities over the past few months.
The scary thing is this: if he is indeed this good right now (and he was better than anyone on the floor in both games) just imagine how good he will be with a year off to work on improving his game even further with a group of coaches who seem more than capable of developing talent. Then add the fact that he will likely have the motivation to prove the doubters wrong. Especially those in Indiana. If he keeps this improvement up and plays like this when he suits up for a GU uniform the only bad news is that he might only play for one season before going pro (he would be a senior after all). But now I’m getting ahead of myself.
I’ve never seen a better performance in person at the Kenner League than the one today by Pat Ewing.
Now this doesn’t mean that Ewing is the best player I’ve ever seen in these games. I can’t make such an irresponsible statement like that off of one game. But the best all around performance? Yeah.
Before I go further here’s a list of players that I can recall seeing suit up for the KL over the years:
Kevin Braswell
Moochie Norris
Othella
Wesley Wilson
David Hawkins – Temple guard
Delonte West
Juan Dixon
Lonny Baxter
Mike Sweetney
Harvey Thomas
Drew Hall
Boumtje Boumtje
Joey Brown
Duane Spencer
Ashanti Cook
Derrick Payne
Courtland Freeman
Hibbert
Victor Samnick
Steve Blake
Jeff Green
Tony Bethel
Darrel Owens
Travis Garrison
TJ Thompson
Ricky Lucas
Darian Townes
Isaiah Swann
Nat Burton
I’m definitely leaving out some pretty good George Mason players; its just that their names escape me at this time. But regardless PE2 looked better than all of them and all the people on the list above. One must take into consideration that a bunch of these guys had bad games when I saw them or simply phoned in their performances. And perhaps Ewing just had the best day of his life tonight.
Okay let me get back to the point. Everything was effortless for the dude. From the warm-ups I could tell I was about to witness something special. He hit outside shots during the warm-ups (Yeah, do that during the game I thought). And then he started putting on his own one-man dunk contest during the “layup” drills. Whoa.
It was telling that Ewing, not Green, was used for the tossup which he won. The first basket of the game came when he put the ball on the floor beating his man, drawing another opponent and then tossing a clean pass behind his head to Jeff who was left wide open for a layup.
Now, I didn’t take notes during the game. I didn’t speak with anyone. I just paid attention. So I’m working only on memory. What I recall is that he hit the VAST MAJORITY of his outside shots. Not just most of hi shots. The vast majority of his perimeter jumpers. This include threes in which he missed only one of the four or five that he took). This meant the medium jumpers in the lane and from the foul line.
He played very good defense in terms of moving his feet and he blocked shots (one of which had the crowd ooohing)
He literally skied for rebounds. I mean the jump in the air and snatch it at a height that no one else could get to..
He handled the rock very well often bringing the bal up the court as if it was nothing at all. He was able to dribble and drive into the lane without difficulty. In fact I don’t recall him turning it over once. Maybe he did have a couple of turnovers but if so they weren’t because of his dribbling. He didn’t expose the ball for others to get a hand on. Now think about this for a moment. With the possible exception of Owens all of the other GU forwards that I have observed in the KL over the years had their moments in which they looked ill suited for ball handling. This includes Bowman, Harvey Thomas, Darian Townes (when he was still a GU recruit), Sweetney, Samnick, etc. Not that these guys didn’t have any skills; they just “fumbled” the ball when they tried to do too much against a stingy enough defense. Heck, Ashanti in the first game tonight turned over the rock a few times during ill advised drives into the teeth of the defense and he’s a guard. Perhaps Ewing just knows his limitations. Perhaps he just has better handle than the other forwards I mentioned above. Whatever the reason he didn’t embarrass himself when the rock was in his hands.
He hustled all game long. He was quick to run out on offense, even quicker to get back on defense. He would battle for rebounds all game long and provide help defense when needed. His motor just kept on running.
He’s a big time finisher. I don’t care if this was a summer game; his finishing abilities are legit. I’ve seen enough times in which our players, even our good ones, don’t finish strong enough when an obstacle is in the way or lurking nearby. They miss a dunk either because of the contact, because of the threat of contact or because the sight of the oncoming defender distracts them. Not this guy. He finishes like a pro. He gets up quickly and throws it down quicker. And if there is some silly defender trying to get in his way that guy’s mud. I smiled when Ewing passed this first test and it was confident the rest of the way that he would keep passing it as the game wore on. Many of you know that’s my main problem with Bowman. He’s so athletic and long but he tends to bounce away from contact most time instead of throwing it down when a defender comes between him and the hoop. If Bowman would at least take the contact and lay it in while drawing a foul I wouldn’t mind so much. After all a basket is a basket whether it comes as a layup or a slam. But Brandon too often doesn’t come close to finishing at all. Sometimes he tries to avoid the contact and misses the basket altogether. Or he will be so meek when trying to score that the refs won’t even call the foul when he gets hit. This is something Bowman must work on. Ewing already has this part of the game conquered. Okay mostly conquered based upon a summer league contest, blah, blah, blah.
Was there one move that really stood out. Maybe the one in which he went coast to coast with the ball and faking out a defender waiting for him in the paint with a slick move that allowed him to score. It was a Pippen-esque maneuver. I wonder when looking at his daddy’s games against the Bulls if he was studying Pip all along. I know that Pip is Owens’ favorite player but unlike Owens Ewing looked very comfortable taking big shots and being the center of attention. Like Egerson in the game I saw last week Ewing didn’t force anything and played very unselfish. But he didn’t shy away from stepping behind that arc and letting the shot go. He’s not a shrinking violet type. I’m just speculating but all of the years growing up with a famous dad and then following in that same dad’s footsteps by playing the same sport, has probably made him accustomed to being in the spotlight and being comfortable with that. There wasn’t any hesitation on his shots. And he knew what he was doing out there.
This game didn’t have the juice of some of the very best Kenner League games I’ve witnessed. I’m definitely sure it couldn’t come close to matching AI’s games or the matchup between Francis and Perry and Forte (of the Tombs) for the championship almost a decade ago. But that was the only thing missing. This kid is a big time player. Or he is at least giving a very good imitation of being one. And that confuses the heck out of me. In high school we knew that he had versatility and was on the brink of making himself a legitimate star player. But he didn’t get to that star level by the time his high school career at National Christian was over. He didn’t look anything close to being this polished when he played in the KL a couple of years ago. And all reports from out of Indiana was that he was a disappointment or at least badly misused by Davis. But Davis couldn’t be that blind and stupid when it comes to this guy could he? He must have seen the kid do this in practice. I can’t imagine Ewing just learned these abilities over the past few months.
The scary thing is this: if he is indeed this good right now (and he was better than anyone on the floor in both games) just imagine how good he will be with a year off to work on improving his game even further with a group of coaches who seem more than capable of developing talent. Then add the fact that he will likely have the motivation to prove the doubters wrong. Especially those in Indiana. If he keeps this improvement up and plays like this when he suits up for a GU uniform the only bad news is that he might only play for one season before going pro (he would be a senior after all). But now I’m getting ahead of myself.
.
). I don't think Jeff has NBA game just yet. He needs to work on his post moves, get bigger, show a tenacious defensive and rebounding streak... things an NBA 4 needs.
