That list includes Brandon Knight, Jimmer Fredette, Nolan Smith, Shelvin Mack, BC’s Reggis Jackson, Josh Selby, E’Twaan Moore, the list goes on.

Derrick Williams will be a bust and aside from the Morris twins there are zero quality big men in the draft.

I can agree there is an overall lack of true talent in this draft class but the PGs will be able to make a serious difference for next year’s NBA rookies.

If you take Kobe off the Lakers, you still have 3 all stars, two of whom have competed and won internationally, as well. The team also would still have the services of a proven 14 year veteran who is also an able leader. Even more, the Lakers minus Kobe would still have a young, strong 5-man and some real good young talent.

In contrast, removing LeBron from the Cavs has resulted in Cleveland still not eclipsing the 10-win mark.

That, my friend, is the bottom line. Bron’s absence caused the Cavs to fall into a quick, irreversible nosedive while at the same time helping a formerly average team (Heat) achieve the most success its had in 5 seasons. It shows that he is even more valuable to the Heat than Wade and Bosh. It is debatable but I suspect that if Kobe bolted for another squad the Lakers could at the very least contend for the 8th and final spot in the playoffs.

Shouldn’t that be the point of MVP?

Rose is nice and he should get more consideration for MVP than Kobe just because of my above logic — the Bulls minus Rose probably has little to no direction. But as long as Phil Jackson is coaching from the sidelines his team always has a chance to win. If anything Phil is more of the MVP than Kobe. Just my thoughts…

BTW, chuck…I wouldn’t say that L’ville begat G’town as much as I’d say that Black folk who rolled with L’ville migrated to rollin’ with G’town.

Thompson’s style of play wasn’t the same as Crum’s. The Hoyas weren’t about pushing the rock as much as Louisville. And, Louisville’s calling card wasn’t the smothering defense of G’town.

But, as a person who made that “switch” of sorts (those are still my 2 favorite college squads of all timezz), I see the connection with the fan base more than between the schools, coaches, or the players.

The bigger problem with using this term to describe black players who get recruited by Duke (since Jalen wasn’t only talking about 20 years ago, he still believes this is happening to this day) is that high school aged kids who watched the documentary (but have no real historical context to grasp what he was trying to say) will take away from the doc that black kids who come from privileged, middle class suburban backgrounds deserve to be resented by black folks who do not come from that type of environment. That in itself launches an entire generation of black youth who will now think they’ve found some kind of validation in underachieving. Then, to top it all off, Jalen makes it seem that black students going to a predominately white, private college is a form of selling out, when in reality Jalen and his Fab 5 teammates chose to attend a school that many people regard as “the Duke of the midwest”. The main difference is that Duke doesn’t “dumb down for [its'] audience [to] double [its] dollars” (since we’re using Jay as a muse right now), meaning being declared academically ineligible at Duke is a serious possibility, unlike the Fab 5, who majored in Phys Ed and were not required to maintain at least a 2.5 GPA, like Duke players are.

Really, everything I’m saying was said much better by Jason Whitlock. Take a read:

http://msn.foxsports.com/collegebasketball/story/ESPN-The-Fab-Five-documentary-Jalen-Rose-Chris-Webber-Juwan-Howard-Jimmy-King-Ray-Jackson-031511