NCAA Basketball Nba Eastern

Mike Conley, Jr. should be the first point guard taken next week, and scouts are saying he could be the next Chris Paul. Very, very soon, his life be changed forever, and he'll start down a path most athletes only dream of.

On his Yardbarker blog, Conley tells us that one of those life-changing moments has happened already:

I was listening to this song called "Joke's on You" which is on the new cd by "Fabolous," when out of no where it sounded like he said my name. I sat there for a minute and thought to myself that i didn't just hear what I thought I heard. . . I never thought that my name would ever be used in a song, especially not one by Fabolous.

He then promptly called Oden to brag--since presumably, this is the one honor that hasn't already been handed to Big Greg. Henry at True Hoop was kind of enough to track down audio of "Joke's on You", which is definitely NSFW. Oh, and if anyone cares, that's Pusha T of Clipse with the putative Conley namedrop.

Correction: Conley needs to calm down a little. "Joke's on You" is a comedy-themed track, and so Conley's actually mis-hearing the name of BET Comic View's Michael Collier.

Interesting op-ed in yesterday's Los Angeles Times by powerful agent Arn Tellem on the proposed USA Basketball Academy. The idea, which Stern seems intrigued by, would fix basketball in America by nurturing all of its top talent in one place. From True Hoop, here's a recap from an earlier Times article:

About 40 players from grades nine to 12 would be selected by a committee, [Sonny] Vaccaro said. Their scholarships for the academy could be taken away if they failed to meet academic standards. Retaining scholarships wouldn't be tied to performance. Two teams would play a national schedule, and no postgraduate players would be involved.

And here's Tellem's take on things:

Gifted young athletes would be better served by a national program that funneled them to preparatory schools ... [that] boast diverse student populations, offer scholarships to financially disadvantaged youth and have the financial clout to help. And every one provides tutors to assist student-athletes in need of remedial work.

Tellem goes on to propose an "intensive summer camp" for the saving basketball part of things. He's definitely in favor of something more far-reaching, and less exclusively focused on sports. It's hard to argue with his observation that plenty of "teen phenoms" don't go on to a career in professional sports. The Academy would help a few kids be better prepared to maybe go pro and make their country proud. Tellem wants to cast a wider net and help more young athletes deal with life down the road.

Jim Moore of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer spent an afternoon talking with projected lottery pick Spencer Hawes of the University of Washington. Lots of good signs from the account -- Hawes is in the weight room every day, he's still going to class, and he generally seems level-headed.

Actually, some might disagree with that last point.

"Would you put your God Bless George Bush bumper sticker on [a Mercedes]?" [Moore] asked.

"I don't know if I'd put a Bush sticker on a car like that," [Hawes] said. "But if anybody could, it would be me."

Asked if he remained solidly behind the president, Hawes said: "Why not? I'm still pushing for everything he's doing. Everyone else is jumping off his bandwagon, but I still love what he's doing."

Pundits call Hawes the next Vlade Divac. Stylewise, maybe we should call him the conservative Etan Thomas? Or get him onto Pat Riley's roster? Maybe he should avoid pregame chatter with Steve Nash. The NBA is certainly the one major American sports league where supporting the administration can be a major PR albatross... so in that way, it's kind-of refreshing to see a young guy unafraid of the backlash.

The vaunted battle of the towers wasn't as good as advertised thanks to the NCAA's notoriously trigger-happy referees, but neither center's stature seems diminished in the wake.

In particular, Roy Hibbert's moderately dominating performance Saturday should knock him into the lottery's first half. Hibbert sat in the #12-13 range in Chad Ford's Top 100 prospects list this past week. But it's hard to imagine Roy falling below #5-6, and I could see him going #3 after Greg Oden and Kevin Durant after a very strong Final Four run for the Hoyas. Saer Sene and Patrick O'Bryant went top 10 last year, and Hibbert is a mile ahead of both ends of the floor and an inch taller.

Of course, no one knows for sure if Hibbert will forego his senior season. It's hard to see him rejecting a sure high lottery selection, though.

(In other Georgetown-NBA reaction, Jeff Green wasn't too assertive, was he? This draft is not short on stud wing players, and I could see Green unfairly slipping into the low end of the lottery after being mentioned in the top 10. Someone could get very lucky with uber-talented Green.)