Duke Basketball: 5 Early Storylines from the Blue Devils’ 2014 Recruiting Trail
The Blue Devils are happy to have a stacked team heading into next season. Yet Duke is intent on continuing to attract top high school talent. With all the uncertainty surrounding underclassmen that will surely attract attention from the NBA, Duke may need a serious infusion of new talent.
There are numerous storylines surrounding Duke’s 2014 recruiting. Each one not only has it’s own interesting narrative, but it speaks to the Blue Devils’ future plans.
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Villanova Basketball: 5 Early Storylines from Wildcats’ 2014 Recruiting Trail
With the Villanova Wildcats about to welcome in the three members of the 2013 recruiting class, the search for the members of the 2014 class has already begun.
While there is still close to a year left in the recruiting process for 2014, some of the best players in the nation have already committed to other schools.
With that being said, Jay Wright and his coaching staff will have to start aggressively pursuing the players that they want to bring to the Main Line for the season after next.
Here is a look at five early storylines to follow in Villanova’s chase for recruits in the class of 2014.
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Creating the Perfect Offseason Plan for the Portland Trail Blazers
Although they’re all at home watching the NBA Playoffs from the comfort of their living rooms, it isn’t all bad for the Portland Trail Blazers.
With an aspiring star at point guard and a few other solid pieces on their roster, the Blazers are already very close to being fringe playoff team. With a few tweaks here and there, there’s no question we’ll be looking at yet another youthful upstart squad in the Western Conference a la the Golden State Warriors.
Draft Acquisitions
Free agency is great in the short term, but nothing beats adding prospects you can build around for the future. Portland will have three picks to work with, and while no one would confuse this collection of talent with the 2003 NBA draft, the guys available in the first round aren’t exactly scrubs.
The NBA draft lottery has yet to occur, but there are already whispers about the Blazers, wherever they may end up in the draft order, having their eyes set on UCLA prospect Shabazz Muhammad. After striking gold with Damian Lillard last year, the Blazers would love to have yet another impact rookie in their backcourt.
In terms of scoring, Portland needs help. Adding an offensive weapon like Shabazz, who averaged 18 points per game in his one season at UCLA, could improve their mediocre production. The hope for the Blazers is that Muhammad would develop a chemistry with Lillard and the two would be the foundation for a solid future.
As far as their remaining picks? Some draft analysts have them targeting Nate Wolters and Alex Abrines—two guards who would further bolster their backcourt down the road but will more than likely spend their rookie seasons in the D-League.
All in all, Portland’s primary impact from this draft will hinge on how patient they are with Muhammad. He has all the talent in the world, but it largely depends on how he fits in with the likes of LaMarcus Aldridge, Damian Lillard and others.
Contracts and Free Agency
In addition to the team’s emphasis on getting younger, the Blazers have a handful of contracts that need sorting out. With numerous expired contracts, trimming some fat would provide a bit of much-needed cap flexibility.
As far as their expired contracts, J.J. Hickson absolutely needs to be a priority as far as re-signing.
Hickson was the team’s leading rebounder, mostly because of his incredibly high motor. Portland cannot afford to lose Hickson, so again, inking him to another deal is priority number one.
On the other hand, guys like Elliot Williams, Sasha Pavlovic (team option) and Nolan Smith will most likely not be retained. It would also make sense for the Blazers to make a qualifying offer to Eric Maynor, who’s a solid reserve player and a nice complement to Lillard. Other than Maynor and Hickson, most of these empty contracts are for players making questionable contributions to the team.
The Blazers would be better off going out and trying to acquire a Jarrett Jack or Nate Robinson with the freed up cap space. Yes, you’ll have fewer bodies in the rotation, but Portland could really use a gunner like a Jack or Robinson coming off the bench—guards or wings capable of playing isolation offense. This team really lacked a punch when the first unit sat down, but an electrifying reserve scorer who knows his role would be a nice pick-up. However, that might mean you’d have to forget about matching Maynor‘s contract.
It’s still a little too early to project how the upcoming offseason will play out, but Portland’s primary objectives should be letting some of those lesser contracts walk and signing a key reserve.
Coaching and a Goal for the New Season
Most people would look at a bad record, and they’d be quick to blame the head coach for the team’s failures.
Yes, they had down season, but head coach Terry Stotts, who just finished his first year at the helm, did a good job considering the pieces with which he had to work.
Names like Stan Van Gundy, Brian Shaw and Phil Jackson are likely being mentioned in just about every front office in need of a coach, but this franchise isn’t one of them. Stotts should be given a little more time to work with this squad, as it seemed to respond to his easy-going, teacher-like approach. The Blazers are young, and they still need to be chiseled into form.
Unlike a team with established veterans, this unit isn’t in need of a Zen Master to mentally manipulate them into contenders overnight; this is a team that just needs a teacher like Stotts, who can correct their errors and build these young players for the future.
Would the playoffs be a realistic goal for this team? Yes, absolutely. The Western Conference—especially the seventh and eighth seeds—is completely wide open. Anything can happen in the NBA, and although it’s possible, this team shouldn’t be too hung up on missing or making the postseason at this point and time.
Stotts should have this team shooting for a .500 record—or at least a significant improvement on last year’s record. For Stotts, being a teacher means being patient.
He needs to teach his team to crawl, walk and then run.
Right now, they’re somewhere between the crawling and walking phase, but when Lillard and the rest of these young guns eventually get more NBA experience and confidence under their belts, you can rest assured they will be ready to run way past the expectations that people will have set for them.
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Syracuse Basketball: 5 Early Storylines from Orange’s 2014 Recruiting Trail
The Syracuse Orange men’s basketball team will play its first year in the ACC without three of its four best players from last season.
Seniors Brandon Triche and James Southerland are moving on and hoping to get drafted and make a professional career out of basketball, and sophomore point guard Michael Carter-Williams is just waiting to see where in the NBA lottery he will be picked.
Only junior forward C.J. Fair, who was the Orange’s most consistent and arguably best player, remains from a team that made a Final Four run.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim has been losing players for decades but has always found a way to keep the cupboard full, or at least he’s made the most out of what’s been in the cupboard. For the past few years, however, with each player lost, Syracuse has advanced farther in the NCAA tournament than the previous year.
It’s like the old adage, “Teach a man to coach and he’ll win today; teach a man to recruit and he’ll win for a lifetime.”
OK, I made that up, but it’s true.
At the close of the 2010-11 season, Syracuse lost to Marquette in the third round (formerly known as the second round). Following this disappointing loss, senior Rick Jackson departed, leaving the Orange to look for other leadership.
That leadership would come from a variety of players. Syracuse would put a team on the floor with extraordinary depth, led by Kris Joseph and Scoop Jardine and the best bench catalyst in the country, Dion Waiters.
Syracuse steamrolled through the season and even achieved a No. 1 ranking. The only blemish of the season came on the road against Notre Dame with Fab Melo being held out with academic problems, an issue that would surface again at the end of the season.
Syracuse seemed destined for a championship date with Kentucky, but a second Fab Melo suspension would force the Orange to make do without the Brazilian 7-footer and Syracuse fell to a strong Ohio State team, albeit in the Elite Eight, a marked improvement over the previous year.
Syracuse lost four players after that season—Waiters, Joseph and Melo to the draft and Jardine to graduation.
The next season would prove a little tougher with the experience lost, but Syracuse found a way to survive and thrive. The explosion of Carter-Williams, combined with the steadiness of Fair and the leadership of Triche and Southerland, Syracuse found itself among the nation’s elite.
The Orange struggled with consistency and settled for a No. 4 seed in the NCAA tournament, but the defensive intensity proved too much for most teams to handle and Syracuse played its way all the way to the Final Four before losing a heartbreaker to Michigan.
From that team, Carter-Williams, Triche and Southerland are all gone, but Jim Boeheim still has a few tricks up his sleeve.
Returning along with Fair are Rakeem Christmas, Baye Keita, DaJuan Coleman, Jerami Grant and Duke transfer Michael Gbinije, a big guard who should be a key contributor after sitting out a season. According to ESPN.com, these players will be backed up by the No. 6 recruiting class in the nation, which includes 5-star point guard Tyler Ennis, Tyler Roberson, B.J. Johnson, Ron Patterson and Chinonso Obokoh.
If Syracuse continues its tournament trend, a national final could be in store, but nothing is assured. The cupboard must be maintained and Jim Boeheim is already preparing for the season after next.
Let’s take a look into the future of Syracuse basketball and the players who will guide the Orange into the early years of ACC existence.
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Ohio State Basketball: 5 Early Storylines from Buckeyes’ 2014 Recruiting Trail
In today’s what-have-you-done-for-me-lately age of college basketball, it has seemed like a lifetime since Ohio State brought in a top-notch recruiting class.
In reality it has been since 2011 that Thad Matta brought in a top-10 class. The 2012 and 2013 groups featured only three combined players, which means the 2014 class will be particularly important for the future in Columbus.
Read on to see five early storylines when it comes to the Buckeyes’ recruiting efforts in trying to land the next scarlet-and-gray stars.
All recruiting rankings, scouting reports and lists of interested schools are courtesy of Scout.com.
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Dalai Lama wears Trail Blazers jersey
On a recent visit to Portland for an Environmental Summit, His Holiness the Dalai Lama was presented with a variety of Trailblazers apparel by Blazers executive Neil Olshey and Chris McGowan. With a cheek-to-cheek smile on his face, the Dalai Lama accepted these gifts and fully rocked the threads to the delight of Blazers fans everywhere. This said, check out some of the photos above and below that captured this awesome exchange.. What a guy. (Courtesy of Blazer’s Edge)
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UNC Basketball: 5 Early Storylines from Tar Heels’ 2014 Recruiting Trail
With all the hype over what program will land Andrew Wiggins, North Carolina’s 2014 class has been flying under the radar for the last few months. But with a Wiggins decision looming around the corner, we’re going to go ahead and spark up the 2014 talk.
The recruiting trail is a long one, and we are merely just a few steps into the process. But Roy Williams did get a good jump on the competition, landing two Top 15 recruits in Justin Jackson and Joel Berry.
There is still a lot of needs, though, and we’ll discuss some of those in the following slides. We’ll also touch on some of the latest rumblings from prospects Ol‘ Roy is hoping to land.
All player rankings come from the 2014 ESPN 60.
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Portland Trail Blazers: What Brandon Roy Meant to the Blazers and Their Fanbase
For five seasons, Brandon Roy dazzled and awed Portland Trail Blazers fans with his late-game heroics that turned him into a bona fide NBA superstar.
Now it looks like one of the once-promising rising stars will see his career come to an unfortunate end.
On Friday, the Minnesota Timberwolves waived Roy after one season. The former three-time All-Star played just five games for the Timberwolves, missing significant time due to severe knee injuries that forced the Blazers to amnesty him before the 2011-12 season.
Roy may not have helped the Blazers to a playoff series victory. You won’t see his name among the all-time statistical leaders in franchise history. But the memories he provided fans have become legendary for those who witnessed his time in Portland.
Roy, who was the 2007 Rookie of the Year, meant much more to Blazers fans than simply as a player.
He represented the transition from the forgettable Jail Blazer era during the mid-2000s to a revival of Rip City. Roy’s clutch plays to finish ballgames became a norm at the Rose Garden. With the ball in his hands, you were confident in his ability to do the right thing and will the Blazers to victory.
In 2009, the Blazers at last made the playoffs in Roy’s third season for the first time since 2003.
Roy had the best season of his career, finishing ninth in the NBA MVP voting, was voted an NBA All-Star for the second time and was named to the All-NBA second team—the first Blazer to make an All-NBA team since Clyde Drexler in 1992.
With a core of Roy, LaMarcus Aldridge and former No. 1 pick Greg Oden, the question was not if Portland was going to win an NBA championship, but when and how many?
The Blazers went 54-28 in 2008-09 with Roy, Aldridge and Oden in their early 20s. They were considered the future of the NBA—what the Oklahoma City Thunder have become today.
While Oden received much of the fanfare as a potential once-in-a-generation center, the Blazers were unquestionably Roy’s team. He was their go-to guy down the stretch.
He provided highlight after highlight, including a miracle three-pointer from deep to down the Houston Rockets on Nov. 6, 2008.
Roy holds the Rose Garden record for most points in a game with 52 on Dec. 18, 2008 in a nationally televised game against the Phoenix Suns.
Fans were ready to hoist Roy’s No. 7 jersey up in the rafters. He was on his way to displacing Drexler and Bill Walton as the best player to ever wear a Blazer uniform.
Entering the 2010-11 season, however, it was apparent after countless knee surgeries that Roy was not going to be the same player. His degenerative knees that had no cartilage had a huge impact on his game, which suddenly lost any type of explosiveness and athleticism.
He started the final game of his career in a Blazer uniform on Dec. 15, 2010 where he totaled four points, two rebounds and five assists in a 103-98 loss to Dallas.
He did not return to the lineup until Feb. 23, 2011, where he became a permanent reserve. His final lasting memory among Blazers fans was a truly remarkable performance in Game 4 against the Dallas Mavericks.
He helped engineer a 23-point second-half rally by scoring a game-high 24 points in one of the greatest comebacks in NBA history. The Blazers won, 84-82.
Portland eventually lost the series 4-2 to the Mavs, who went on to win the NBA title. But that Game 4 was etched into the minds of Blazers fans as one of the most memorable in franchise history.
Portland decided to amnesty Roy in the ensuing offseason just one year into a five-year, $82 million contract, which led to his unexpected retirement (h/t Joe Freeman of The Oregonian). It was a big blow to not only Portland, but around the NBA as players reacted on Twitter at the time.
Then-Blazers coach Nate McMillan said it was a tough time to release a player who had been the face of the franchise’s turnaround (via Jason Quick of The Oregonian):
The Closer has closed. He was a guy who in the last few years was one of the best closers in the league. When Brandon had the ball in his hands late in ball games, I was really comfortable. You knew something good was going to happen. He was either going to create a shot for himself, or a shot for his teammate. He had some big moments in a short career.
Roy had two opportunities to make his comeback to the RG this past season as a member of the Wolves, but his knees forced him to sit both times. He addressed his return to Portland in March when Minnesota visited and said, “It would have been special for me to come back and play here in this building.”
His nickname was “The Natural,” given to him by radio play-by-play announcer Brian Wheeler. No nickname fit him better. Blazers fans who witnessed Roy from 2006 to 2011 will no doubt look back on his career and say, “I was privileged to be there when Brandon Roy played.”
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Indiana Basketball: 5 Early Storylines from Hoosiers’ 2014 Recruiting Trail
Indiana basketball coach Tom Crean, pictured here at Cody Zeller‘s NBA draft declaration press conference, understands that such events can be just as beneficial as harmful.
While next season’s team will miss Zeller‘s length and athletic ability, the sight of a coach sending multiple players to the Association early creates an impression with recruits. John Calipari‘s perpetual success at Kentucky is based on the evidence that he can send recruits to chase their professional dreams.
With both Zeller and Victor Oladipo going pro early this season, Crean is beginning to build his own NBA pipeline.
That can only aid his cause as he chases prospects for the class of 2014. Some interesting players are on the IU radar, so let’s examine a few of the compelling narratives surrounding the Hoosiers’ efforts.
All photos courtesy 247 Sports unless otherwise noted.
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Michigan State Basketball: 5 Storylines from Spartans’ 2014 Recruiting Trail
Tom Izzo‘s Michigan State Spartans are already considered a heavyweight entering the upcoming 2013-14 season by just about anyone who’s anyone in the world of college basketball analysts.
ESPN’s Dick Vitale likes what he sees when he looks at the perennial Izzo-led powerhouse, dubbing this year’s edition as possibly the best ever (h/t Mike Griffith of MLive) at Michigan State in an interview with WXMI-TV.
That sentiment could be debated, but if the Spartans want to have the same expectations come 2014-15, they have to take care of business during the current recruiting period.
Michigan State has a strong foothold when it comes to landing a few of the 2014 class’ biggest names. Already in pursuit of the likes of Jahlil Okafor, the country’s No. 2 player, according to 247Sports.com’s composite rankings, the Spartans stand secure on at least a couple of highly touted prospects for their next collection of talent.
If Michigan State secures the commitment of Okafor, the top-rated center of 2014, it could easily be considered a national title contender for 2014-15.
But Okafor isn’t the only guy who Izzo has eyes for.
The storylines are thick with dramatics, so pay close attention to this slideshow, as it’ll make a few things clear on what and who to watch for during Izzo’s “other” season.
*Unless noted otherwise, stats and information are courtesy of 247Sports.
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