01/07 - EBC @ Rucker - Week 2
I can’t believe it’s not Rucker; indoors, in the Gaucho’s Gym and out of the Park-ay, the Entertainers’ Basketball Classic is just as slammin’– especially with Adrian “A. Butter” Walton doing his smooth thing on the very same hardwood where he once lit up Vince Carter for 32 points. But the slammin’ is done in a somewhat different fashion.
.
“It’s more like real ball,” says Rafer “Skip To My Lou” Alston who as a founding star of EBC and the Toronto Raptors’ point guard, should know. “It doesn’t quite have that street feel to it. Rucker Park is EBC, Gaucho’s is more NBA.”
.
“I actually love it in here. It’s a shooters’ rim.”
.
Skip is watching “the damn thing” from the sidelines — for now. “I’ll play starting July 4th,” he starts. “But I don’t know for which team yet.” Hearing hints of this — word gets around EBC faster than The Bone Collector dribbles around hapless defenders — D Band coach Tom Rosa is displeased. (This is while the game’s going on - to succeed, you must be a multitasking kind of a guy around here.) “He said he’d play with us,” Rosa, who looks ticked off to the max on the best of days, fumes as only he can. “He promised!” “If he’ll play anywhere, he’ll play in the celebrity game at the Garden,” Ron Naclerio, Skip’s onetime high school coach and current friend, booms. “One game, maybe. The kid’s got to be tired. Rafer needs exposure?”
.
Like a toothache, but…”It’s the friends and the memories, dude,” counters Alston. “There’s nothing like the memories from playing the park. It’s always good to come back and remember how it used to be. And I’m ready to create some new ones.”
.
“Playing ball is so much fun — and it all goes so fast,” muses Alston. “You have to appreciate every second. And that’s true for us in Toronto, too: we have to find a new attitude, a more hardnosed approach to practice in order for us to start winning. We’ve got to go hard every minute. We have the talent. And it’s not the coach: true, Sam (Mitchell) was in his first year last season. But this stuff has to come from the inside, from us. It’s on the players.”
.
As D Band dominates — it’s 50-37 at halftime and should be worse — its star guard Antawn Dobie talks about the other side of life. “Last season, I played in Poland and Belgium,” he says. “And, oh yeah, I almost forgot: in the USBL for the Brooklyn Kings as well. I really don’t know why the NBA has not given me a look; at this point I really think it’s not what you know, it’s whom you know. You know, is your agent hooked up with the right people?”
.
Dobie a.k.a. “Anti-Freeze” hooks up with EBC because “it’s the best summer ball out there, especially if you’re a guard. It’s the highest level of competition every summer. This is how I improve; I challenge myself every summer to get better.”
.
The mercury-quick Dobie — he scoots into the paint pretty much any time he wants to — indeed appears to be about a half a baby step away from The Show. “If he was two inches bigger…” says Skip. “I mean, Freeze is right there. Maybe with a better mid-range jumper…But it’s not like he couldn’t play in the league right now if he gets into the right situation.”
.
According to Naclerio, Daryl “Showtime” Hill– the star of the second game — is EXACTLY in the right situation. “Couldn’t be better,” says the Cardozo mentor who coached Hill in high school as well. “All these top point guards and small combo guards came out into the draft this year due to the new (19-year old age limit) rule. Who’s left in college or high school or wherever that’s better than Darryl? Next year, he’ll go high lottery.” For the moment, Showtime is satisfied to put on a show against out-manned So So Def.
.
“And this year he’ll have better talent around him at St. John’s, right?” one sideline aficionado inquires. “Nah,” Naclerio douses the Storm. “I don’t think their recruiting class is all that hot.”
.
Ouch. You can hear the groans from all over Queens — this recruiting class was supposed to be Da’ Bomb. We’ll see how all this plays out: on one hand, Naclerio was hoping for an interview during last year’s Storm-y coaching search and didn’t get it. On the other hand, others have muttered similar things about Ricky Torres, Anthony Mason Jr., et. al. On the third hand, the Big East competition may have just gotten light years easier: the hottest rumor at EBC has UConn stars A.J. Price and Marcus Willams (probably the best point guard in college ball right now) under school investigation for some computer shenanigans.
.
Meanwhile Kennedy Center — led by the backcourt law firm of “The Counselor” and “The Defender” — storm back from a 20-point deficit to take a 69-68 lead on D Band. But then the Anti-Freeze gets hot and A. Butter begins to knife his way through to the hoop at will. The better talent conquers, 91-79.
.
Then, with one eye on the opponent, another on the NBA, it’s Showtime. Just another fly night at EBC, in-doors or out.