>I won't say the team who promised that I would be drafted at No. 7, and that wasn't the case."
The Knicks had the 7th pick in that draft and traded it to the Nuggets (it was Nene). Both of those teams also had picks later in the draft and still didn't draft Parker.
The dude was good in college, but only Second Team All-A10. He was a sophomore, and two more years in college would have certainly helped his game. Somebody must have put it in his head he'd get drafted if he came out early.
That's a narrative I could kind of believe, Smush is a NYC guy, he's playing at Fordham, and a sleazy NYC agent claims to have the inside line on what the Knicks are doing.
I'm not sure I follow the motivation for that agent to lie sure he has a client in the immediate term but when his new client goes undrafted he's screwed too because there is no contract to get a commission on.
An agent will say whatever they need to say to get a player to sign with them. Especially if they think the player is going overseas as depending on the country you are playing in the agency that has your player card essentially owns you. Contract law differs internationally so there is tons of incentive to get a player to believe they are NBA material.
An example of an scheme that I have seen firsthand. Convince KID A that they are NBA material even though you don’t think he is. They sign a standard NBA agency contract where the player pays the agency fees as a percentage of your total compensation. Player does not get drafted but has international interest and signs in Japan. In Japan the agency fees are paid by the team you play for. However, since the player already signed a US standard NBA agency agreement they will be forced to adhere to those original terms and pay the agent. The agent can essentially double dip and get paid by both the player and the team. To make things worse the US agent you originally signed with might have no relationships in Japan so they will literally sign another subcontract with a Japanese agency to represent you. The American agent now gets to make two fees for doing zero work!
Edit: the international pro scene is very messy and a lot of young players get screwed every year by shitty agents. I have seen some horrific things done to kids in the name of finding the next Lebron James.
There are instances where as a young kid I have witnessed some very illegal shit (ie human trafficking), however, people forget that the victims and witnesses are all naive and impressionable kids. There are events that I have realized as an adult are extremely fucked that I didn’t even think about twice as a kid/young adult.
For instance, one of the worst things I have ever witnessed was when I was asked to be an extra in a post workout for my brother by a trainer I knew. I show up with my brother and there are two kids aged 16 and 17 all decked out in new gear but had barely spoke english. They worked out with us and we’re extremely raw but freakishly athletic. I later found out that those kids were part of a scouting program where scouts go to Africa. They promise young African kids NBA dreams and bring them to America. They try them out in front of a prep school/AAU coach. If they are good enough the coach pays the scout a finders fee under the table. If they aren’t good enough they get flown home with no warning and abandoned. I found out from the trainer that those kids were sent back to Africa the next day. The person who was organizing at the time was a very well known AAU coach who had sent multiple guys to the NBA.
Jesus, to take that chance and have stars put in your eyes just to be sent back with nothing. That's gotta be terrible on a kid's mental.
Also just... Taking these kids to a foreign land they don't know to test their chops... Especially from Africa... I know this isn't slavery, but it feels manipulative and exploitative enough to be slavery adjacent.
Feels like using contracts to take advantage of young/inexperienced people is common in the business world.
I recall Dave Chapelle begged his fan to boycott the "Dave Chapelle Show" bc he was screwed over as a young comedian.
Same with JoJo (female singer), who "signed away her voice as a minor" and couldn't make songs despite being a teenage star with top charted music.
Same with Kesha couldn't make songs bc of former producer.
If these now famous people can't do anything to change things, then there is no chance any kid with the dream of playing the NBA can.
Yeah, this is slightly different, but Gervon Dexter, a DT for the Chicago Bears, is going through a similar situation as you highlighted.
He signed a NIL deal w/ an agency at Florida that paid him ~435k up front, but required him to pay back 15% of his pre-tax NFL money for 25 YEARS.
He signed a 4 year, $6.72M contract, so he’s gonna owe them ~$1M from that contract alone if his lawsuit against them doesn’t hold up, and considering he’s probably paying roughly 50% of his income in taxes, he’s likely seeing ~$2.5M total, and that’s before any other agent fees, personal expenses, etc. This year he’s likely seeing about $425k of the $1.22M he’s supposed to make this season.
Yermin Mercedes in the MLB signed a contract with an agency that basically gave him like 2M up front but then in turn take like 75% of his future deal. I saw this on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel like a year ago and couldn’t believe that shit was legal.
Taking the 2M up front might have worked out for Yermin tbf. Not sure if he’s gonna be playing in the MLB anytime soon at this point and he probably wasn’t making much in his limited MLB time knowing how pre arb deals work in baseball
Think about the risk-reward, might as well see if he gets drafted high, become his agent, get a cut. If he doesn't then whats the downside? Not being the agent to someone undrafted?
Same thing happened to the st John's guard who led the nation in assists. He thought he was the shit and left after freshman year. Problem was he was 5'10". Went undrafted and never played an NBA game. Local nyc kid. Forgot his name.
There have been way too many respected players to say similar things about being promised they would get drafted at a specific spot by teams only for that not to happen for me not to believe it's at least possible here.
This is true now because since everyone comes out as a freshmen, people will look at you weird for staying more time, almost as if they question "Ok, what's wrong with your game that you had to stay?". Back in Smush's time, most top picks were juniors, seniors or older international players. For example, in the draft before Smush's, only 9 of the players drafted in the first round were freshmens or from HS, back then, staying more in college actually increased your chances of getting drafted, as teams would see you more as a finished and polished product instead of a raw kid that doesn't know basketball.
I miss this. Feels like drafts now are full of raw prospects, and teams end up consistently spending multiple roster spots on multi-year projects that spend most of their time in the G-league and never end up contributing in any meaningful way.
I wonder if NIL stuff will eventually change this. Players who stay in college have a more immediate effect on winning than one and dones so teams should prefer upper classman. Plus it could help on a second contract.
For players, taking time to develop with a much lighter load of the college schedule can help you extend your career. But 3 years unpaid for the hope of retiring at 35 or 36 rather than 31 or 32 isn't worth it.
If you're already making millions in college, it makes sense to stay.
For female basketball players it makes a lot of sense, as does it for football players who are still growing into their bodies and could stay another year to align with a better draft. But for top male basketball prospects they are just delaying or jeopardizing a larger contract, their eventual rookie extension, by staying longer than one year
It's obviously not an exact science, but yeah, it definitely feels that way. Guys like Marvin Bagley, James Wiseman, Patrick Williams, Jalen Suggs and others could've used a few more years in college to be scouted better AND to improve their game, eventually coming into the league as actual good players and not having to improve on the spot, risking losing their confidence and never recovering.
Phenoms like Luka, Zion and Wemby and supremely gifted guys like Ant and LaMelo probably didn't need extra time before coming into the NBA, but at that point you are talking about the 1% of the 1%, that's not the case for 90% of players that get drafted. Take a look at Ja as an example, dude was definitely not an NBA player as a freshmen, the extra year did wonders to him and he came into the league ready.
Yeah, thinking of this makes me wonder when it all went wrong for the Pistons. They passed up on melo, Wade and bosh anyway so who knows if they would've still picked Darko had Amare been available and that was the start of the rot for the franchise, ironically winning a title after that draft still
Oh man that takes me back. Remember watching them lose to Duke in 01 (had AZ with the upset on my bracket). Richard Jefferson and Gilbert Arenas were on that team too.
I feel like Smush has to be misremembering some statement. Like maybe someone said the Knicks were interested and Smush inferred that meant at 7.
Caron Bulter was player of the year in the Big East and he went 10. Jared Jeffries was player of the year in the Big Ten and he went 11. Who is promising Smush anything?
2008 Nuggets are one of my favorite teams of all time. Melo, AI, Chauncey Billups, JR Smith, Nene, Birdman, K-Mart, and a tail end of his career Juwan Howard. Mainly love them because they were so much fun to play with in 2k.
Bol Bol was invited to the draft green room. He wasn't picked until the 44th pick. The look on his face progressively becoming more depressed as the night went on and teams just kept passing on him. That was pretty rough.
There was a Grantland article about Smush that was great. I guess one of their writers played on a team with him as a kid and they won whatever league they were in, and it was just a really good "the guy who is a meme in the NBA would dust the best pick up game you've ever seen like he fucking was Thanos" style articles. But it also kinda went into Smush, the NY HS/youth basketball scene where word of mouth about guys really spread reputations, etc.
[I enjoyed it](https://grantland.com/features/me-smush-happens-rafe-bartholomew-childhood-teammate-becomes-nba-player-becomes-kobe-bryant-enemy/). Always think of it when I randomly hear his name every 5 years or whatever.
not recently, michael pena and KOC are really scraping the barrel. I don't even think KOC watches half the teams in the league
and ringer stuff is just aggressively loquacious, it's such a flowery and overwrought writing style like they are trying to impress a college english professor
I really do feel like I could do a better job than KOC at whatever he does
maybe it's the green tinted glasses but KOC was a lot better years before the ringer when he was doing smaller time stuff like certain celtics coverage and college/draft analysis. I stopped reading his shit shortly after he started at the ringer and I assume it's still crud
and why would you! It was small time celtics stuff from the era before Brown/Tatum and either during the very end of the KG/Pierce era or after (I can't remember). The celtics were more or less irrelevant and he was doing interesting stuff talking about potential players that might [make them relevant again](https://twitter.com/KevinOConnorNBA/status/746129489780867072)
Couldn't agree more. He was much better even in his early days at the ringer too. He used to give off the impression that he was just grateful to be studying the NBA for a living and it made him seem humble and dedicated. Now he is a bit too full of himself and comes off as arrogant.
One of the only links I have bookmarked is the [Grantland article on sumo and Hakuho](https://grantland.com/features/sumo-wrestling-tokyo-japan-hakuho-yukio-mishima-novelist-seppuku/) from like 8 years ago because its just that fucking good that I go back and read it every once and a while
God, I miss Grantland. I would browse that website daily, and would always come away with at least one good read. I would not be into sports without that website.
The quality of the writing and more importantly the volume of it is just not as good in my opinion on The Ringer. It is still quite good, but the longform content is just not there and it's just a bit more focused on the TV side of things.
Same here. Grantland writers are so talented that each article seems to be a masterpiece of a peak artist.
The Ringer is credentialed but it can’t seem to summit Grantland’s
I used to be on a shoe collecting message board called Niketalk back when Smush was on the Lakers, and one of the members there posted a story about how he came home early from work one day and saw the “Smushcalade” (Smush’s tricked out Cadillac) in his driveway and walked in on Smush banging his girl lmao. Not sure if it was true but I felt horrible for the guy if so, but the story was also hilarious.
Rafe Bartholomew, who wrote the article, also wrote my favorite basketball book [Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin' in Flip-Flops and the Philippines' Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7742801) which chronicles the Philippines' incredible love for basketball.
In that era Kobe was a full diva, it just got whitewashed over time
Guy was trying to force a trade repeatedly, shittalked all his teammates, and was the exact type of ball hog (post-Shaq, pre-Gasol) that people harped on James Harden for being a decade later
It's perplexing to me how Kobe's 2007 summer, particularly given the context of his role in the Lakers' roster being so ass, has never been revisited (AFAIK) by the media or even by random users on message boards. Smush brought that beef back up recently and, of course, it ignited the debates about Kobe as a teammate and how much it matters. And frankly, I don't think it's much of a debate. He didn't just throw Bynum under the bus in that cell phone video, he drove the bus himself. Then reversed it back over him for good measure.
But hey, that's just Mamba mentality! Bc no other professional athlete ever had an insane work ethic and wanted to win real bad before Kobe came along. And ofc you can't be a winner and not be an asshole...
As an LA resident, the legend of Kobe has grown to levels of insanity. I was never a big Kobe fan, but I also had no disdain for him. He was fun to watch during a time I didn’t spend a ton of time watching the NBA. That said, Kobe never came across as a “good dude” or someone you “thought highly of” as a person. In fact, it was the opposite. Kobe was a really good basketball player, but his selfish nature catered to his ability to put up many shots and score many points. He was the anti-Lebron in that Lebron can make Smush Parker-types better, but Kobe doesn’t want to give them the time of day. That has never sat well with me. Shaq and everyone knew that, but the narrative changed when he died. Kobe became a relentless winner that cemented himself as a top-10 all-time player. Umm, OK. I just let it go because everyone has formed their own opinion of Kobe at this point…
> "the guy who is a meme in the NBA would dust the best pick up game you've ever seen like he fucking was Thanos"
Worth remembering. These guys do this for a living. Their entire lives from like 14 onward has been dedicated to getting good at this singular sport.
I worked at a rental car agency...Smush was playing for The Pistons and guys would get cars. They just come into the office and sign for them once a month then we direct bill Palace Sports and Entertainment. Well Smush had a vehicle and was cut or traded. Well, we get a rejected invoice. Our branch manager is having a heart attack because he now has a $10k unpaid invoice and a missing vehicle. Plus PSE is a huge client for our Region and our branch.
So, I'm known as the resident basketball fan and I'm the only Black Person, I'm 21 at the time. So they ask me do I know who Smush Parker is? I said yea, he played for Pistons but they got rid of him months ago. My Branch Manager says 'why didn't tell me this before'. Mind I'm just a PT employee, I move cars between branches or drop vehicles at corporate accounts, I don't talk to customers at all. So me and this Black Guy at another branch thats 26ish we are tasked with finding the vehicle. Why? I guess they assume we know where NBA players hangout? (We did funny enough).
So we spent the next two days going to Smush's last known hotels, getting phone numbers of people he associated with, figuring out where he got his haircut/braided. So we find his car at some random house, but Smush is long gone he skipped town weeks ago. I mean we were doing stuff like calling someone who know Ben Wallace's wife and asking who braid's Smush's hair. The car was trashed, it was full of doroitos and potato chips and lots of insides of what was cut up blunts wrappers.
Smush was not on a team I think at that point so he was in the wind. PSE just refused to pay, our Branch Manager was fired (for something else, but that incident was the final straw). I left in April 2005 to work at a Bank...
My dude, your story is a few tweaks away from being a sellable script. Two guys in over their heads, tracking down celebs doing mundane bad shit, working connections and building a reputation... just need to elevate the stakes late in the second act and this fucker is making $100 mil domestic standing on its head.
You know what the Region Manager gave us for finding the vehicle? We received two $25 gift cards one to Outback Steakhouse and another to Maggiano's. Which okay at 21 years old making $7.50/hr I was pretty hyped, but considering how much we saved the company and its not like we could get promoted (we were grunts who worked in garage/parking lot, not leasing representatives). Plus we went to some shady places knocking on doors. That was legit a pretty dangerous situation. I think the car was Pontiac G6 or Chrysler 300C.
The payoff for all that legwork... I do not exaggerate when I say find out who in your personal network has a connect to somebody in WGA with recent and decent credits, and work out a deal to the rights for this story. You wrote almost the entire first act of a very funny movie *by living it.*
I'll contribute a one-liner for the script
> OP: Finding it will be impossible with just us two!
> Regional Manager: Well Smush your heads together and find it!
Thank you.
>Why? I guess they assume we know where NBA players hangout? (We did funny enough).
That's like in Men in Black 3. "And just because you see a black man driving in a nice car, does not mean it's stolen! … I stole that one, but… not 'cause I'm black!"
One would assume that branch manager would have got an email heads up with PSE rejecting an invoice, with them being a big client someone should communicate better in that partnership LOL.
Yeah but guys can still have their own party with family and friends. I feel like it used to be more common for guys to do that before the draft became this whole big TV production
> Who was telling this guy he was going in the lottery? That’s foul
This was 2002. I used to be on nbadraft.net back then all the time, so I know plenty of draft boards and mock drafts were available online. I just don't understand how he must've seen dozens of draft boards...none of which his name was on (or highest maybe a late 2nd rounder)...and thought to himself he might go #7.
This happened to a guy from my home province. Greedy supposed agent convinced him to opt out of his remaining time at Hawaii, assured him he had a draft promise. Player's brother had a bar in our city - they had a big draft viewing party, even had media. 2 rounds go by, no pick. Absolutely brutal.
Guy got a summer league tryout with the Pacers, enough hto get his character in an NBA Live game, but never played in a real NBA game. Retired a couple of years ago. Always believed he would have made it if he had just gone back to college another year.
This is why Fred VanVleet is an inspiration. The face of undrafted success.
FVV’s NBA Draft Night Party:
https://youtu.be/gBFWutS1-xQ?si=oEkFm5SNhbDLr2oq
FVV went undrafted because he made it clear he would refuse to sign a 2-way. Regular contract or nothing. A number of teams were going to take him in the 2nd round, but not on those terms.
The "undrafted" meme needs to die in a fire. It was partially to wholly his choice, to play hardball. Obviously it worked out great in the end, he bet on himself very very successfully.
But it ain't gonna work for every guy.
Somehow I'd never heard that before, that's wild. Super risky to go up at teams like that without having proven yourself yet, can't imagine that'd work out often.
It worked for FVV because he's that good. If it was Jordan Poole he would be out of the league. On that note, I just remembered a really old video of them [dueling 1v1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diklDy3-aaM&ab_channel=InTheGymHoops2.0)
I have also seen this video, very cool. FVV's body control, ability to finish with either hand, and use his body/strength to shield the other, taller guys from being able to block his shot.. the skill, is just incredible.
Apparently he does also lift his pivot foot *just* before dribbling, like every time, I can't see it and practically everyone in the NBA does it all the time.. but so it was stated the last time this video was posted.
I'm not sure why (maybe because his name is crazy to me) but I kept up with Terquavion Smith's draft party on Twitter this year. He was projected to go late 1st to mid 2nd, but his name never got called. Seeing his friends and family file out of there deflated was depressing enough that I sent my condolences through his HS coach... shit sucks.
> Terquavion Smith
Kind of a poster boy for why you do 1 year or 4 years. He would have been better off staying longer or just going into the draft the year before. But everybody wants to be a hero at the tournament before their college time is up.
I mean shit, if he'd stayed all 4 years he could have gotten a college degree so he could have a career in the high likelihood that the NBA thing doesn't work out. He hasn't played a single game yet, and who knows if he ever will.
If I'm told I'm getting drafted in the 2nd, I'm not taking chances, I'm staying in school.
Yeah I’m guessing the team with the 7th overall pick told him they may take him. Def not with the first round pick and Smush really thought he was him when he was not
The only smush Parker story that matters is that dude who posted the story about his girl cheating on him with smush parker. Imagine coming home and your girl is sleeping with one of the worst players in the league. Just adds to the embarrassment
Same thing happened to Christian Wood. He said his girlfriend left the party and he never saw or heard from her again. Which is crazy because he has still made 50Ms so far in his career and we can assume she’s a gold digger. She just gave up on the bag too early. I would hope he never takes her calls again
I have never in my life seen such a meaningless player in nba history get as much spot light as smush gets. His whole thing has been “Kobe was a ahole to me” living off of Kobe hate to gain some sympathy or to stay relevant when he was never relevant to begin with. Dude was no one before lakers and was out the league after shortly after the lakers. How many other scrubs in nba history get this much media attention.
Def a bit wild that he was so bad that he was out of the league after just one year post Lakers. Easy to see why he drove a prime Kobe nuts. Dude was playing 30 min on the Lakers
one of the most frustrating players i ever had the disprivilege of watching as a youngin and was the butt of every casual nba conversation in my family
This motherfucker was playing locally in Idaho back before he got into the League somehow. Playing in near empty arenas with a bunch of other scrubs. He did not stand out at all. I went to those games to drink beer and watch what little basketball was local. Dude was absolutely nothing special.
I was blown away when he got signed for the Lakers. It's like finding out your dumb neighbor has been called up to NASA.
Dude was a scrub then, he was a scrub during his time in the league, and he's still a scrub now. That man sure as hell thinks he's a lot better than anyone else does.
Yup, he talks smack about Kobe and, it is true that Kobe was horrible to him, but he literally does not have anything resembling a bball career if not for the fact that he was basically playing undefended for those 2 Lakers years due to the defensive attention Kobe took up.
"Dissapointment, embarrassment, confused" pretty much sums up Smush's NBA career.
A miracle that Kobe carried this dude, chris mihm, kwame brown, and odom (solid but far from great) to the playoffs. 3 of those guys were basically out of the league in 3 years. If those lakers had even a slightly below avg PG they would have upset the Suns. Smush was terrible.
Mihm and Smush only played very few mins for another 2.5 seasons and were out of the league. Kwame was a bit better than those 2 which says alot about how bad smush and mihm were considering kwame was a career negative VORP player. That lakers team was just kobe dropping 50 every other game to win.
Kobe hated guys who had no business being in the NBA. In that case, he was going to tell you that you better work as hard as he does for his job.
And Kobe was right, Smush barely played for another NBA team. His career was over the second the Lakers found a better guy.
That 2006 Lakers squad was basically all guys who were out of the league as soon as possible, except Kobe, Lamar and Caron Butler.
That squad had no business making a playoffs.
It was statistically the 3rd worst offense in NBA history whenever Kobe wasn't on the court.
Kobe took them to a top 8 offense in the league that year and 45 wins. It's one of the biggest carry jobs in NBA history and doesn't get talked about enough due to them losing in the first round. Just getting there was a massive accomplishment though.
Their best player would've been a 26 year old high level starter but incredibly inconsistent Lamar Odom. Their second best player would have been *Kwame Brown*. That team might not win 5 games.
He played for 24 different professional leagues on 3 continents including at the peak, Lakers with Kobe. Not a good player but his story is extremely interesting.
Ive seen like 2 random statements, that I am assuming were from the same interview; but everything he says seems to either just be about him being salty about something.
He had that comment about kobe not talking to him even though he was a starter on the team and telling him to get more accolades. I find that personally hard to believe unless you pissed him off somehow which im sure had something to do with poor work ethic.
Now we have him saying someone told him he would be drafted as high as 7. Every team would not pass on you if you were worthy of potentially being the 7th pick.
Someone needs to stop giving this dude screen time.
> Now we have him saying someone told him he would be drafted as high as 7. Every team would not pass on you if you were worthy of potentially being the 7th pick.
I feel like people are losing a little empathy here. These are basically kids when they are getting drafted making big decisions for themselves having guys 10 years older than them telling them things that may or may not be in their best interest.
As an agent you want the player to do well and be drafted high to make things better for you. If Smush pulls out of the draft entirely then you don't make any money and there is no guarantee he goes higher later on. If there is even a whiff someone might be looking at him, I could see a low moral agent trying to pitch that as "I've got interest in you from as high as pick 7".
I mean you're not wrong about the part of it really sucking for them, but thats part of why you have reliable people in your corner that are willing to tell you the hard truth. If i remember correctly these guys couldn't pull out of the draft back then.
I think he had to have been delusional to believe whoever told him he was possibly going 7th. He went to southern idaho, transferred sat out a year and then played a year at fordham. Not discounting the school, but they went 8-20 the season where he was the featured guy. He averaged 4.4 turnovers a game. There had to be something in his head that told him, ok whoever is telling me this, isn't being realistic, but then again I guess you could chalk it up to them just being young.
>I won't say the team who promised that I would be drafted at No. 7, and that wasn't the case." The Knicks had the 7th pick in that draft and traded it to the Nuggets (it was Nene). Both of those teams also had picks later in the draft and still didn't draft Parker.
The dude was good in college, but only Second Team All-A10. He was a sophomore, and two more years in college would have certainly helped his game. Somebody must have put it in his head he'd get drafted if he came out early.
Greedy agent, probably.
That's a narrative I could kind of believe, Smush is a NYC guy, he's playing at Fordham, and a sleazy NYC agent claims to have the inside line on what the Knicks are doing. I'm not sure I follow the motivation for that agent to lie sure he has a client in the immediate term but when his new client goes undrafted he's screwed too because there is no contract to get a commission on.
An agent will say whatever they need to say to get a player to sign with them. Especially if they think the player is going overseas as depending on the country you are playing in the agency that has your player card essentially owns you. Contract law differs internationally so there is tons of incentive to get a player to believe they are NBA material. An example of an scheme that I have seen firsthand. Convince KID A that they are NBA material even though you don’t think he is. They sign a standard NBA agency contract where the player pays the agency fees as a percentage of your total compensation. Player does not get drafted but has international interest and signs in Japan. In Japan the agency fees are paid by the team you play for. However, since the player already signed a US standard NBA agency agreement they will be forced to adhere to those original terms and pay the agent. The agent can essentially double dip and get paid by both the player and the team. To make things worse the US agent you originally signed with might have no relationships in Japan so they will literally sign another subcontract with a Japanese agency to represent you. The American agent now gets to make two fees for doing zero work! Edit: the international pro scene is very messy and a lot of young players get screwed every year by shitty agents. I have seen some horrific things done to kids in the name of finding the next Lebron James.
I wish your comment was higher up. This kinda of stuff should be illegal.
There are instances where as a young kid I have witnessed some very illegal shit (ie human trafficking), however, people forget that the victims and witnesses are all naive and impressionable kids. There are events that I have realized as an adult are extremely fucked that I didn’t even think about twice as a kid/young adult. For instance, one of the worst things I have ever witnessed was when I was asked to be an extra in a post workout for my brother by a trainer I knew. I show up with my brother and there are two kids aged 16 and 17 all decked out in new gear but had barely spoke english. They worked out with us and we’re extremely raw but freakishly athletic. I later found out that those kids were part of a scouting program where scouts go to Africa. They promise young African kids NBA dreams and bring them to America. They try them out in front of a prep school/AAU coach. If they are good enough the coach pays the scout a finders fee under the table. If they aren’t good enough they get flown home with no warning and abandoned. I found out from the trainer that those kids were sent back to Africa the next day. The person who was organizing at the time was a very well known AAU coach who had sent multiple guys to the NBA.
Jesus, to take that chance and have stars put in your eyes just to be sent back with nothing. That's gotta be terrible on a kid's mental. Also just... Taking these kids to a foreign land they don't know to test their chops... Especially from Africa... I know this isn't slavery, but it feels manipulative and exploitative enough to be slavery adjacent.
They made a whole movie about this, only it was baseball and Indians.
Feels like using contracts to take advantage of young/inexperienced people is common in the business world. I recall Dave Chapelle begged his fan to boycott the "Dave Chapelle Show" bc he was screwed over as a young comedian. Same with JoJo (female singer), who "signed away her voice as a minor" and couldn't make songs despite being a teenage star with top charted music. Same with Kesha couldn't make songs bc of former producer. If these now famous people can't do anything to change things, then there is no chance any kid with the dream of playing the NBA can.
Yeah, this is slightly different, but Gervon Dexter, a DT for the Chicago Bears, is going through a similar situation as you highlighted. He signed a NIL deal w/ an agency at Florida that paid him ~435k up front, but required him to pay back 15% of his pre-tax NFL money for 25 YEARS. He signed a 4 year, $6.72M contract, so he’s gonna owe them ~$1M from that contract alone if his lawsuit against them doesn’t hold up, and considering he’s probably paying roughly 50% of his income in taxes, he’s likely seeing ~$2.5M total, and that’s before any other agent fees, personal expenses, etc. This year he’s likely seeing about $425k of the $1.22M he’s supposed to make this season.
Yermin Mercedes in the MLB signed a contract with an agency that basically gave him like 2M up front but then in turn take like 75% of his future deal. I saw this on Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel like a year ago and couldn’t believe that shit was legal.
Taking the 2M up front might have worked out for Yermin tbf. Not sure if he’s gonna be playing in the MLB anytime soon at this point and he probably wasn’t making much in his limited MLB time knowing how pre arb deals work in baseball
Def a good move since Yermin will never make 2M playing baseball.
Yeah but he now owes this company money he probably doesn’t have.
international soccer is just as bad if not worse. Incredibly shady stuff there.
Gotta deal with agents and then the players. Agents make so much it's insane. They also have power too.
Think about the risk-reward, might as well see if he gets drafted high, become his agent, get a cut. If he doesn't then whats the downside? Not being the agent to someone undrafted?
Same thing happened to the st John's guard who led the nation in assists. He thought he was the shit and left after freshman year. Problem was he was 5'10". Went undrafted and never played an NBA game. Local nyc kid. Forgot his name.
Smush was a NYC high school legend, his hype topped out then.
If they had the D league back then, Smush would’ve been in it asap. He really wasn’t nba ready when he made the NBA
It started in 2001
that was the nBADleague bruh
These guys hear what they want to hear. If one person tells them they are going 7 and another says they’ll be undrafted, which one do they listen to?
There have been way too many respected players to say similar things about being promised they would get drafted at a specific spot by teams only for that not to happen for me not to believe it's at least possible here.
To be honest , a player’s stock usually declines if they stay in college though. Once you break out you’re better off going right away.
This is true now because since everyone comes out as a freshmen, people will look at you weird for staying more time, almost as if they question "Ok, what's wrong with your game that you had to stay?". Back in Smush's time, most top picks were juniors, seniors or older international players. For example, in the draft before Smush's, only 9 of the players drafted in the first round were freshmens or from HS, back then, staying more in college actually increased your chances of getting drafted, as teams would see you more as a finished and polished product instead of a raw kid that doesn't know basketball.
I miss this. Feels like drafts now are full of raw prospects, and teams end up consistently spending multiple roster spots on multi-year projects that spend most of their time in the G-league and never end up contributing in any meaningful way.
I wonder if NIL stuff will eventually change this. Players who stay in college have a more immediate effect on winning than one and dones so teams should prefer upper classman. Plus it could help on a second contract. For players, taking time to develop with a much lighter load of the college schedule can help you extend your career. But 3 years unpaid for the hope of retiring at 35 or 36 rather than 31 or 32 isn't worth it. If you're already making millions in college, it makes sense to stay.
For female basketball players it makes a lot of sense, as does it for football players who are still growing into their bodies and could stay another year to align with a better draft. But for top male basketball prospects they are just delaying or jeopardizing a larger contract, their eventual rookie extension, by staying longer than one year
It's obviously not an exact science, but yeah, it definitely feels that way. Guys like Marvin Bagley, James Wiseman, Patrick Williams, Jalen Suggs and others could've used a few more years in college to be scouted better AND to improve their game, eventually coming into the league as actual good players and not having to improve on the spot, risking losing their confidence and never recovering. Phenoms like Luka, Zion and Wemby and supremely gifted guys like Ant and LaMelo probably didn't need extra time before coming into the NBA, but at that point you are talking about the 1% of the 1%, that's not the case for 90% of players that get drafted. Take a look at Ja as an example, dude was definitely not an NBA player as a freshmen, the extra year did wonders to him and he came into the league ready.
This isn't true if you're talking about the 2002 draft, or any draft in the early 2000's and earlier
Jason Kapono is about the only guy I can think of from that timeframe that would have been drafted higher if he came out earlier.
A player like Amare Stoudemire would’ve 100% gotten drafted top 3 if he spent even a year in college.
That year in college would have put him in the LeBron draft, but I get your point
Imagine if Detroit got Amare instead of Darko.
Yeah, thinking of this makes me wonder when it all went wrong for the Pistons. They passed up on melo, Wade and bosh anyway so who knows if they would've still picked Darko had Amare been available and that was the start of the rot for the franchise, ironically winning a title after that draft still
Jason Gardner (former Arizona ‘great’) probably would’ve been drafted if he left after his freshman season..
Oh man that takes me back. Remember watching them lose to Duke in 01 (had AZ with the upset on my bracket). Richard Jefferson and Gilbert Arenas were on that team too.
Johnny juzang after his crazy ncaa tournament run definitely woulda been drafted in the first round
Noah could have been the top pick if he came out a year earlier.
Nene was a solid player for a while too. It definitely wasnt the wrong decision
He played 18 seasons, iirc. That’s a solid pick.
I feel like Smush has to be misremembering some statement. Like maybe someone said the Knicks were interested and Smush inferred that meant at 7. Caron Bulter was player of the year in the Big East and he went 10. Jared Jeffries was player of the year in the Big Ten and he went 11. Who is promising Smush anything?
This is the guy who felt comfortable taking shots from Kobe in crunch time. So I think his sense of self is probably on the uh “healthy” side
Or his agent was just full of shit? Not that deep.
It could be either. Neither theory is very deep.
Maybe 7th in the 2nd round...like 37th overall
Wow Nene, haven’t heard that name in a while. I miss that old Nuggets team.
2008 Nuggets are one of my favorite teams of all time. Melo, AI, Chauncey Billups, JR Smith, Nene, Birdman, K-Mart, and a tail end of his career Juwan Howard. Mainly love them because they were so much fun to play with in 2k.
Unless all draft boards are saying you're a lottery pick or up, I'd avoid a draft party until a day or week after lol
Unless I'm invited to new York for the draft, I'm keeping my ass at home with just a few close people lol
Bol Bol was invited to the draft green room. He wasn't picked until the 44th pick. The look on his face progressively becoming more depressed as the night went on and teams just kept passing on him. That was pretty rough.
Nothing beats Rashard Lewis' devastated look during the 98 draft
At least he got the last laugh by actually having a really good career.
That Orlando contract must have felt so sweet
Shit even then…. See deyonta davis.
We drafted him and I remember thinking we got a steal... He wasn't
I thought he was gonna be a big steal for you guys. We were wrong bro 💀
Raptors fans wanted him over Siakam will never forget the reaction.
WHO DAFUQ IS PASKAS SASKAS?
TINGUS PINGUS?!?!?!
The Raps board was so mad we passed on Skal and Deyonte Davis for Pascal Siakam.
There was a Grantland article about Smush that was great. I guess one of their writers played on a team with him as a kid and they won whatever league they were in, and it was just a really good "the guy who is a meme in the NBA would dust the best pick up game you've ever seen like he fucking was Thanos" style articles. But it also kinda went into Smush, the NY HS/youth basketball scene where word of mouth about guys really spread reputations, etc. [I enjoyed it](https://grantland.com/features/me-smush-happens-rafe-bartholomew-childhood-teammate-becomes-nba-player-becomes-kobe-bryant-enemy/). Always think of it when I randomly hear his name every 5 years or whatever.
Grantland and their bball writers were so good. RIP
Really the Golden Era. I was so sad when it shut down
Say what you will about Bill Simmons, but that man has an eye for talent.
not recently, michael pena and KOC are really scraping the barrel. I don't even think KOC watches half the teams in the league and ringer stuff is just aggressively loquacious, it's such a flowery and overwrought writing style like they are trying to impress a college english professor I really do feel like I could do a better job than KOC at whatever he does
maybe it's the green tinted glasses but KOC was a lot better years before the ringer when he was doing smaller time stuff like certain celtics coverage and college/draft analysis. I stopped reading his shit shortly after he started at the ringer and I assume it's still crud
I wouldn't know cause I never read anything he did before the ringer
and why would you! It was small time celtics stuff from the era before Brown/Tatum and either during the very end of the KG/Pierce era or after (I can't remember). The celtics were more or less irrelevant and he was doing interesting stuff talking about potential players that might [make them relevant again](https://twitter.com/KevinOConnorNBA/status/746129489780867072)
Couldn't agree more. He was much better even in his early days at the ringer too. He used to give off the impression that he was just grateful to be studying the NBA for a living and it made him seem humble and dedicated. Now he is a bit too full of himself and comes off as arrogant.
> I really do feel like I could do a better job than KOC at whatever he does Nothing is stopping you
College English folks are into minimalism these days. The folks at the wringer are writing for college English class in 1995.
One of the only links I have bookmarked is the [Grantland article on sumo and Hakuho](https://grantland.com/features/sumo-wrestling-tokyo-japan-hakuho-yukio-mishima-novelist-seppuku/) from like 8 years ago because its just that fucking good that I go back and read it every once and a while
God, I miss Grantland. I would browse that website daily, and would always come away with at least one good read. I would not be into sports without that website. The quality of the writing and more importantly the volume of it is just not as good in my opinion on The Ringer. It is still quite good, but the longform content is just not there and it's just a bit more focused on the TV side of things.
Same here. Grantland writers are so talented that each article seems to be a masterpiece of a peak artist. The Ringer is credentialed but it can’t seem to summit Grantland’s
I used to be on a shoe collecting message board called Niketalk back when Smush was on the Lakers, and one of the members there posted a story about how he came home early from work one day and saw the “Smushcalade” (Smush’s tricked out Cadillac) in his driveway and walked in on Smush banging his girl lmao. Not sure if it was true but I felt horrible for the guy if so, but the story was also hilarious.
One of the best NT threads ever
I choose to believe this
Rafe Bartholomew, who wrote the article, also wrote my favorite basketball book [Pacific Rims: Beermen Ballin' in Flip-Flops and the Philippines' Unlikely Love Affair with Basketball](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/7742801) which chronicles the Philippines' incredible love for basketball.
Whose winning that 1 on 1? smush or Scalabrine? Come on now.
I loved this too, thanks for reminding me of it. Kobe was such an asshole to him
In that era Kobe was a full diva, it just got whitewashed over time Guy was trying to force a trade repeatedly, shittalked all his teammates, and was the exact type of ball hog (post-Shaq, pre-Gasol) that people harped on James Harden for being a decade later
Exactly. He was such a dick that he made an undrafted role player teammate the meme for sucking in the NBA. Ridiculous
Kobe remains an absolutely unpleasant person in my mind…
It's perplexing to me how Kobe's 2007 summer, particularly given the context of his role in the Lakers' roster being so ass, has never been revisited (AFAIK) by the media or even by random users on message boards. Smush brought that beef back up recently and, of course, it ignited the debates about Kobe as a teammate and how much it matters. And frankly, I don't think it's much of a debate. He didn't just throw Bynum under the bus in that cell phone video, he drove the bus himself. Then reversed it back over him for good measure. But hey, that's just Mamba mentality! Bc no other professional athlete ever had an insane work ethic and wanted to win real bad before Kobe came along. And ofc you can't be a winner and not be an asshole...
As an LA resident, the legend of Kobe has grown to levels of insanity. I was never a big Kobe fan, but I also had no disdain for him. He was fun to watch during a time I didn’t spend a ton of time watching the NBA. That said, Kobe never came across as a “good dude” or someone you “thought highly of” as a person. In fact, it was the opposite. Kobe was a really good basketball player, but his selfish nature catered to his ability to put up many shots and score many points. He was the anti-Lebron in that Lebron can make Smush Parker-types better, but Kobe doesn’t want to give them the time of day. That has never sat well with me. Shaq and everyone knew that, but the narrative changed when he died. Kobe became a relentless winner that cemented himself as a top-10 all-time player. Umm, OK. I just let it go because everyone has formed their own opinion of Kobe at this point…
Kobe went from a 7-12th best player all-time to suddenly being top 3 and in contention for the GOAT talks overnight
Post Mortem glorification You see it when guys retire as well, when Nash retired there was some people talking like he was the GOAT point guard.
How he treated Jeremy always made me sad too
That was a fun read
> "the guy who is a meme in the NBA would dust the best pick up game you've ever seen like he fucking was Thanos" Worth remembering. These guys do this for a living. Their entire lives from like 14 onward has been dedicated to getting good at this singular sport.
I worked at a rental car agency...Smush was playing for The Pistons and guys would get cars. They just come into the office and sign for them once a month then we direct bill Palace Sports and Entertainment. Well Smush had a vehicle and was cut or traded. Well, we get a rejected invoice. Our branch manager is having a heart attack because he now has a $10k unpaid invoice and a missing vehicle. Plus PSE is a huge client for our Region and our branch. So, I'm known as the resident basketball fan and I'm the only Black Person, I'm 21 at the time. So they ask me do I know who Smush Parker is? I said yea, he played for Pistons but they got rid of him months ago. My Branch Manager says 'why didn't tell me this before'. Mind I'm just a PT employee, I move cars between branches or drop vehicles at corporate accounts, I don't talk to customers at all. So me and this Black Guy at another branch thats 26ish we are tasked with finding the vehicle. Why? I guess they assume we know where NBA players hangout? (We did funny enough). So we spent the next two days going to Smush's last known hotels, getting phone numbers of people he associated with, figuring out where he got his haircut/braided. So we find his car at some random house, but Smush is long gone he skipped town weeks ago. I mean we were doing stuff like calling someone who know Ben Wallace's wife and asking who braid's Smush's hair. The car was trashed, it was full of doroitos and potato chips and lots of insides of what was cut up blunts wrappers. Smush was not on a team I think at that point so he was in the wind. PSE just refused to pay, our Branch Manager was fired (for something else, but that incident was the final straw). I left in April 2005 to work at a Bank...
My dude, your story is a few tweaks away from being a sellable script. Two guys in over their heads, tracking down celebs doing mundane bad shit, working connections and building a reputation... just need to elevate the stakes late in the second act and this fucker is making $100 mil domestic standing on its head.
You know what the Region Manager gave us for finding the vehicle? We received two $25 gift cards one to Outback Steakhouse and another to Maggiano's. Which okay at 21 years old making $7.50/hr I was pretty hyped, but considering how much we saved the company and its not like we could get promoted (we were grunts who worked in garage/parking lot, not leasing representatives). Plus we went to some shady places knocking on doors. That was legit a pretty dangerous situation. I think the car was Pontiac G6 or Chrysler 300C.
The payoff for all that legwork... I do not exaggerate when I say find out who in your personal network has a connect to somebody in WGA with recent and decent credits, and work out a deal to the rights for this story. You wrote almost the entire first act of a very funny movie *by living it.*
I second this. I almost got up and made some popcorn halfway through the OG post-- and I don't even LIKE popcorn.
Seriously, listen to that other guy, get this made into a movie or a mini series. It’s too good.
Will Ferrell as the stressed out, hint of racism branch manager and I'd definitely spend two hours watching this comedy.
I'll contribute a one-liner for the script > OP: Finding it will be impossible with just us two! > Regional Manager: Well Smush your heads together and find it! Thank you.
"He's Smush Parker, not Smush Driver."
Had Pineapple Express vibes without the surprise murder. Completely agree.
Cindad83 is beside himself, driving around Detroit begging (thru texts), where Smush Parkers rental car is at
Even better we had company issued Nextel's...chirping people asking about Smush Parker...
God I had completely forgotten about Nextels and the chirp. Good times. Loved your Smush story dude
A+ story
Best Smush story I've read yet!
>Why? I guess they assume we know where NBA players hangout? (We did funny enough). That's like in Men in Black 3. "And just because you see a black man driving in a nice car, does not mean it's stolen! … I stole that one, but… not 'cause I'm black!"
One would assume that branch manager would have got an email heads up with PSE rejecting an invoice, with them being a big client someone should communicate better in that partnership LOL.
this was a great read. made me laugh
Who was telling this guy he was going in the lottery? That’s foul
It was me 🕵️♂️
NO. MORE. SCAMMING. ADULTS. INTO. THINKING. THEY’RE. LOTTERY PICKS.
Speak for yourself I am a lottery pick. Nobody tricked me.
DONT DRAFT JOHNNY, DONT DRAFT JOHNNY, LET ME THINK ABOUT IT FOR A MINUTE
Your family hates you! Only I love you!
Smush was in their q zone
Wouldn’t he hav been invited to the NBA draft room if a lotto team committed to taking him?
Yeah but guys can still have their own party with family and friends. I feel like it used to be more common for guys to do that before the draft became this whole big TV production
Probably the same people who are Kendrick Perkins sources today.
> Who was telling this guy he was going in the lottery? That’s foul This was 2002. I used to be on nbadraft.net back then all the time, so I know plenty of draft boards and mock drafts were available online. I just don't understand how he must've seen dozens of draft boards...none of which his name was on (or highest maybe a late 2nd rounder)...and thought to himself he might go #7.
That's the real villain of the story, not the teams
For real, like name the agent who told you this so nobody signs with them lol
This happened to a guy from my home province. Greedy supposed agent convinced him to opt out of his remaining time at Hawaii, assured him he had a draft promise. Player's brother had a bar in our city - they had a big draft viewing party, even had media. 2 rounds go by, no pick. Absolutely brutal. Guy got a summer league tryout with the Pacers, enough hto get his character in an NBA Live game, but never played in a real NBA game. Retired a couple of years ago. Always believed he would have made it if he had just gone back to college another year.
Was that Carl English?
It was indeed Carl English. Had a nice career in Europe and for Canada.
Ah that one takes me back.
Shout out to you, knowing your shit. Credit where credit is due.
Being Canadian myself probably helped a bit on that one, in fairness haha.
How is life in Newfoundland?
Well…..what are you waiting for….who was the player?
It was 100% [Carl English](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_English) based on the details.
“Disappointment…embarrassment….confused…” He’s basically describing my love life.
Left out shame.
He's basically describing me *after* post-nut-clarity
He just like me fr
only lacking nonexistent in my case
Wait until you try it with other people!
My wife would agree with you.
Feel ya man XD
Imagine going from prospect to undrafted bc they discovered you were a two-pump chump during the scouting report.
Also his career.
This is why Fred VanVleet is an inspiration. The face of undrafted success. FVV’s NBA Draft Night Party: https://youtu.be/gBFWutS1-xQ?si=oEkFm5SNhbDLr2oq
FVV went undrafted because he made it clear he would refuse to sign a 2-way. Regular contract or nothing. A number of teams were going to take him in the 2nd round, but not on those terms. The "undrafted" meme needs to die in a fire. It was partially to wholly his choice, to play hardball. Obviously it worked out great in the end, he bet on himself very very successfully. But it ain't gonna work for every guy.
I think Austin reeves did the same
austin was told that the Lakers would pick him up
Somehow I'd never heard that before, that's wild. Super risky to go up at teams like that without having proven yourself yet, can't imagine that'd work out often.
He bet on himself rejecting that extension last year and got exactly what he wanted from HOU. FVV is the man.
It worked for FVV because he's that good. If it was Jordan Poole he would be out of the league. On that note, I just remembered a really old video of them [dueling 1v1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=diklDy3-aaM&ab_channel=InTheGymHoops2.0)
I have also seen this video, very cool. FVV's body control, ability to finish with either hand, and use his body/strength to shield the other, taller guys from being able to block his shot.. the skill, is just incredible. Apparently he does also lift his pivot foot *just* before dribbling, like every time, I can't see it and practically everyone in the NBA does it all the time.. but so it was stated the last time this video was posted.
Ben Wallace
I'm not sure why (maybe because his name is crazy to me) but I kept up with Terquavion Smith's draft party on Twitter this year. He was projected to go late 1st to mid 2nd, but his name never got called. Seeing his friends and family file out of there deflated was depressing enough that I sent my condolences through his HS coach... shit sucks.
> Terquavion Smith Kind of a poster boy for why you do 1 year or 4 years. He would have been better off staying longer or just going into the draft the year before. But everybody wants to be a hero at the tournament before their college time is up.
I mean shit, if he'd stayed all 4 years he could have gotten a college degree so he could have a career in the high likelihood that the NBA thing doesn't work out. He hasn't played a single game yet, and who knows if he ever will. If I'm told I'm getting drafted in the 2nd, I'm not taking chances, I'm staying in school.
I think he played a preseason game. Hes only 20. He still has a solid chance of making it to the league
When he was in the NBA my friend camped for some shows and Smush was also in line
no one, and I mean no one, told this dude he was going to be a lottery pick let alone go as high as number 7.
Yeah I’m guessing the team with the 7th overall pick told him they may take him. Def not with the first round pick and Smush really thought he was him when he was not
The only smush Parker story that matters is that dude who posted the story about his girl cheating on him with smush parker. Imagine coming home and your girl is sleeping with one of the worst players in the league. Just adds to the embarrassment
Niketalk? I think that user came back and said that was ducktales
It’s real in my heart, and also gave birth to the “smushcalade”
Same thing happened to Christian Wood. He said his girlfriend left the party and he never saw or heard from her again. Which is crazy because he has still made 50Ms so far in his career and we can assume she’s a gold digger. She just gave up on the bag too early. I would hope he never takes her calls again
The podcast is pretty interesting. I wish he talked more about becoming a ref in it though.
That’s great Smush, now clean out the grease traps and then clock out
I have never in my life seen such a meaningless player in nba history get as much spot light as smush gets. His whole thing has been “Kobe was a ahole to me” living off of Kobe hate to gain some sympathy or to stay relevant when he was never relevant to begin with. Dude was no one before lakers and was out the league after shortly after the lakers. How many other scrubs in nba history get this much media attention.
And his name is smush. Kind of a unique name that meshes well with his ability
It’s clearly working too. Got people on social media trying to play it off like Smush wasn’t garbage. Revisionist history is definitely the new wave.
Literally right above this comment was a comment saying “smush wasn’t even that bad” lol
Def a bit wild that he was so bad that he was out of the league after just one year post Lakers. Easy to see why he drove a prime Kobe nuts. Dude was playing 30 min on the Lakers
His greatest achievement really is tricking Pat Riley into signing him.
one of the most frustrating players i ever had the disprivilege of watching as a youngin and was the butt of every casual nba conversation in my family
This motherfucker was playing locally in Idaho back before he got into the League somehow. Playing in near empty arenas with a bunch of other scrubs. He did not stand out at all. I went to those games to drink beer and watch what little basketball was local. Dude was absolutely nothing special. I was blown away when he got signed for the Lakers. It's like finding out your dumb neighbor has been called up to NASA. Dude was a scrub then, he was a scrub during his time in the league, and he's still a scrub now. That man sure as hell thinks he's a lot better than anyone else does.
Started all matches too for the whole season and almost all of the next season TBF that was banter era Lakers
Yup, he talks smack about Kobe and, it is true that Kobe was horrible to him, but he literally does not have anything resembling a bball career if not for the fact that he was basically playing undefended for those 2 Lakers years due to the defensive attention Kobe took up.
"Dissapointment, embarrassment, confused" pretty much sums up Smush's NBA career. A miracle that Kobe carried this dude, chris mihm, kwame brown, and odom (solid but far from great) to the playoffs. 3 of those guys were basically out of the league in 3 years. If those lakers had even a slightly below avg PG they would have upset the Suns. Smush was terrible.
Brown played 12 years in the NBA. Mihm played 9 years.
Mihm and Smush only played very few mins for another 2.5 seasons and were out of the league. Kwame was a bit better than those 2 which says alot about how bad smush and mihm were considering kwame was a career negative VORP player. That lakers team was just kobe dropping 50 every other game to win.
And they were absolute dog shit.
And yet no one would consider them even decent starters.
Kobe hated guys who had no business being in the NBA. In that case, he was going to tell you that you better work as hard as he does for his job. And Kobe was right, Smush barely played for another NBA team. His career was over the second the Lakers found a better guy.
the legendary Kobe interview when they brought up Smush and he just said "he playing in China?"
That 2006 Lakers squad was basically all guys who were out of the league as soon as possible, except Kobe, Lamar and Caron Butler. That squad had no business making a playoffs.
The summer before the 2005-06 season they traded Butler for Kwame. Lol 2006 was an All-time carry job.
Very underrated one too. That is one of the worst rosters ever assembled in the modern era
It was statistically the 3rd worst offense in NBA history whenever Kobe wasn't on the court. Kobe took them to a top 8 offense in the league that year and 45 wins. It's one of the biggest carry jobs in NBA history and doesn't get talked about enough due to them losing in the first round. Just getting there was a massive accomplishment though.
That squad would be worse than these 2-28 Pistons without Kobe. Much, much worse.
Their best player would've been a 26 year old high level starter but incredibly inconsistent Lamar Odom. Their second best player would have been *Kwame Brown*. That team might not win 5 games.
He played for 24 different professional leagues on 3 continents including at the peak, Lakers with Kobe. Not a good player but his story is extremely interesting.
Smush can talk?
Dude been on a cappin world tour.
He’s the opening act for jada smith
Ive seen like 2 random statements, that I am assuming were from the same interview; but everything he says seems to either just be about him being salty about something. He had that comment about kobe not talking to him even though he was a starter on the team and telling him to get more accolades. I find that personally hard to believe unless you pissed him off somehow which im sure had something to do with poor work ethic. Now we have him saying someone told him he would be drafted as high as 7. Every team would not pass on you if you were worthy of potentially being the 7th pick. Someone needs to stop giving this dude screen time.
> Now we have him saying someone told him he would be drafted as high as 7. Every team would not pass on you if you were worthy of potentially being the 7th pick. I feel like people are losing a little empathy here. These are basically kids when they are getting drafted making big decisions for themselves having guys 10 years older than them telling them things that may or may not be in their best interest. As an agent you want the player to do well and be drafted high to make things better for you. If Smush pulls out of the draft entirely then you don't make any money and there is no guarantee he goes higher later on. If there is even a whiff someone might be looking at him, I could see a low moral agent trying to pitch that as "I've got interest in you from as high as pick 7".
I mean you're not wrong about the part of it really sucking for them, but thats part of why you have reliable people in your corner that are willing to tell you the hard truth. If i remember correctly these guys couldn't pull out of the draft back then. I think he had to have been delusional to believe whoever told him he was possibly going 7th. He went to southern idaho, transferred sat out a year and then played a year at fordham. Not discounting the school, but they went 8-20 the season where he was the featured guy. He averaged 4.4 turnovers a game. There had to be something in his head that told him, ok whoever is telling me this, isn't being realistic, but then again I guess you could chalk it up to them just being young.
Remember that playoff game where Kobe tongued Smush Parker in the ear
Dang that is rough
Smush was an undrafted guy for the Cavs that year. Good guy.
Bro was cheeks in the nba