Interesting Shabazz Muhammad story

[SoCalDukeFan]

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnone/la-fi-shabazz-muhammad-inc-20130322-dto,0,3133186.htmlstory


Worth reading, if nothing else for more insights into the murky world of pre-college basketball.

Personally I think Duke is lucky not to have him. He is a selfish player and while very good is not, at this stage, out of the world great.

SoCal

[wgl1228]

Wow, this is a disturbing article. "We're going to make some all-americans." Be grateful we don't have him.

[pfrduke]

The birth certificate thing is shady, too. That's a crazy article.

[BD80]

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnone/la-fi-shabazz-muhammad-inc-20130322-dto,0,3133186.htmlstory


Worth reading, if nothing else for more insights into the murky world of pre-college basketball.

Personally I think Duke is lucky not to have him. He is a selfish player and while very good is not, at this stage, out of the world great.

SoCal

Yuck. I had to scrub my computer's cache after heading to that site.

[Lord Ash]

Wow. That dad is a really, really sketchy sounding guy. Sounds like a real typical hustler.

[G man]

Yeah dodged a bullet on that one

[AtlBluRew]

We're very lucky not to have that family in the mix here at Duke!

[Andre Buckner Fan]

The birth certificate thing is shady, too. That's a crazy article.

I feel bad for Shabazz. What chance does a kid have with a Dad who is that shady?

This guy makes stage parents look healthy.

[BD80]

A very telling aspect:


... he goes by Ron Holmes because, he said, he never finished his formal religious conversion [to Islam].

No real suprise, he must have found there was no profit in it for him. Morality also seems to an insurmountable obstacle for him.

[mapleleafdevil]

Greg Oden is actually 45

[Andre Buckner Fan]

Greg Oden is actually 45

That explains all the injuries.

[sagegrouse]

Holmes is a bad guy. He wears his amorality on his sleeve. I mean, guy, have some self-respect. Pretend like you care about your child and his team and his education. I feel sorry for Shabazz, and I am more than happy he ended up in Westwood.

sagegrouse

[Bay Area Duke Fan]

After reading this article, it makes me wonder why Coach K was recruiting this guy so hard and for so long. We often hear about the qualities that K looks for in recruits and their families. It appears that he missed seeing this side of Shabazz and his family. It's a good thing for Duke that Shabazz decided to go to UCLA.

[NashvilleDevil]

Is this the basketball version of Marv Marinovich?

[Dukeblue91]

Wow I feel really dirty reading this article about Shabazz's dad.
We dodged a real bullet with him going to UCLA instead of Duke.
His dad must be pretty at deceiving people in order to have fooled coach K.
I feel sorry for his kids though.

[miramar]

This article makes Tony Parker look like an altar boy who's also an eagle scout.

I'm just glad both of them ended up in Westwood.

[bob blue devil]

His dad must be pretty at deceiving people in order to have fooled coach K.


yeah; with the full benefit of hindsight, i'm a little concerned by the fact we were in the mix here. i guess holmes either pulled the wool over our eyes (disappointing) or we saw a bunch more integrity in Shabazz than we did in pops. i'm hoping for the latter and that shabazz can overcome his family.

[Chicken Little]

After reading this article, it makes me wonder why Coach K was recruiting this guy so hard and for so long. We often hear about the qualities that K looks for in recruits and their families. It appears that he missed seeing this side of Shabazz and his family. It's a good thing for Duke that Shabazz decided to go to UCLA.

I wonder more about how any coaching staff can balance the benefit of an, ahem, high-mainenance recruit against the headache they or their parents present. We all know the rumored difficulties the staff had with Chris Burgess and Kris Humphries, and how they ultimately decided it better to part ways, but I'm sure there's more of it going on than we hear about. I'm sure the stories we hear about are the tip of the iceberg, and it must ramp up when parents see their retirement plans hinging on the number of minutes their kid sees on a basketball floor.

[drcharl]

If you get a player with a much bigger agenda behind him than being a team player at the college level, look what the results are (last night). 20 points but...... The success of the team is secondary. We sure did dodge a bullet and need to stay clear of such marketed players in the future.

[SupaDave]

Well, let's drop the racial aspect and bias and get to something a little bit more interesting. I found this quote quite intriguing bc without the ability to go pro immediately some colleges just become pawns in the game (some here feel this way about Austin). BUT if a parent goes in with the mindset that not only will his son be successful but also rich then the whole game changes.

Marv Marinovich was never about the money but this Holmes guy....


But Holmes' real genius has been navigating the cutthroat realm of college basketball. It's a world in which school athletic departments, coaches and TV networks reap millions while young athletes, in Holmes words, are left with "crumbs."

Throw in O'Bannon v. the NCAA and Ron Holmes doesn't sound that crazy. Everyone laughs at the broke athlete but when the bill came everyone looked at him...

[dyedwab]

Well, let's drop the racial aspect and bias and get to something a little bit more interesting. I found this quote quite intriguing bc without the ability to go pro immediately some colleges just become pawns in the game (some here feel this way about Austin). BUT if a parent goes in with the mindset that not only will his son be successful but also rich then the whole game changes.

Marv Marinovich was never about the money but this Holmes guy....



Throw in O'Bannon v. the NCAA and Ron Holmes doesn't sound that crazy. Everyone laughs at the broke athlete but when the bill came everyone looked at him...

Marty Marinovich was who I first thought of when I read this piece. What I see here is a guy (Holmes) who decided that, in a system designed to exploit the athlete, he was gonna exploit it right back. (Not gonna get into the debate about whether that's the right way to view the system - its clearly how Holmes thought about it).

But just like in the pieces about Marinovich, absent from here is Shabazz. Story isn't about him...it's about his dad.

[BD80]

Marty Marinovich was who I first thought of when I read this piece. What I see here is a guy (Holmes) who decided that, in a system designed to exploit the athlete, he was gonna exploit it right back. (Not gonna get into the debate about whether that's the right way to view the system - its clearly how Holmes thought about it).

But just like in the pieces about Marinovich, absent from here is Shabazz. Story isn't about him...it's about his dad.

Wonder if NBA GMs factor in the daddy when evaluating whether to draft 'bazz. It might drop him a spot or two

[tbyers11]

Wonder if NBA GMs factor in the daddy when evaluating whether to draft 'bazz. It might drop him a spot or two

NBA GMs don't give a thought to the daddy factor. Parents have no leverage with the NBA. They can't threaten to have their kids transfer from the Bobcats to the Lakers ;) Also parents like this stop making much of a fuss when their children become millionaires.

I think the only thing that in that article that will give NBA GMs the slightest bit of pause is the fact that he is really 20 and not 19. Makes some of his physical abilities a little less impressive. He is still a top 5 pick no matter what.

[SupaDave]

NBA GMs don't give a thought to the daddy factor. Parents have no leverage with the NBA. They can't threaten to have their kids transfer from the Bobcats to the Lakers ;) Also parents like this stop making much of a fuss when their children become millionaires.

I think the only thing that in that article that will give NBA GMs the slightest bit of pause is the fact that he is really 20 and not 19. Makes some of his physical abilities a little less impressive. He is still a top 5 pick no matter what.

To the NBA, I would think the fact that he is older makes him a bit more attractive. The NBA isn't looking for the youngest talent - just young talent which he not only qualifies for but is still light years past most 20 year olds in maturity. The NBA doesn't need any more Kwames or Leon Smiths.

[ice-9]

NBA GMs don't give a thought to the daddy factor. Parents have no leverage with the NBA. They can't threaten to have their kids transfer from the Bobcats to the Lakers ;) Also parents like this stop making much of a fuss when their children become millionaires.

I think the only thing that in that article that will give NBA GMs the slightest bit of pause is the fact that he is really 20 and not 19. Makes some of his physical abilities a little less impressive. He is still a top 5 pick no matter what.

It might even make the player more attractive - a highly attentive, money minded dad won't let their golden goose go broke spending it all on bling bling and women, or do stupid things like get addicted to drugs or invest in bad ventures.

[pfrduke]

Folks, several posts here verged on PPB material on what can be a touchy subject. They've been deleted, although no infractions have been handed out. Any further posts on the subject will be deleted and infracted. Please refrain from discussing that aspect of the article here.

[Des Esseintes]

To the NBA, I would think the fact that he is older makes him a bit more attractive. The NBA isn't looking for the youngest talent - just young talent which he not only qualifies for but is still light years past most 20 year olds in maturity. The NBA doesn't need any more Kwames or Leon Smiths.

There's no way the extra year should make him more attractive to front offices. The older he is, the less likely he will be to make the quantum jump forward that even the best prospects must to be worthy of a high pick. This Rany Jazayerli article (http://www.baseballprospectus.com/article.php?articleid=15295) is about baseball, but similar work has been done with basketball and the principle remains the same. A 20-year-old scoring 16 ppg is less impressive than an 18-year-old doing the same for the simple reason that we can expect the 18-year-old to be performing even better by the time he hits 20. On top of that, the late teen years are apparently a time of particular growth in athletic ability and skill, so the younger a player is performing at a high level the more years he has in this special zone to jump to elite levels. If Muhammad has already passed through that zone, his ceiling should be correspondingly lowered.

I don't know if this revelation will hurt Muhammad's stock, but if I was making decisions it absolutely would.