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AD "wasn't a big time recruit out of Chicago"

WallMashKyBall said:
I guess announcer was stuck on the part of the AD story where he was a 6 foot guard for most of his high school career and only jumped up in hight his last year and a half and he played for a chicago high school that was terrible. So he came out of nowhere really fast to be the number one.
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Agreed. Message seems to be that "he wasn't a big-time recruit" until...he was.
 
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Princecal said:
Per the announcer during the Lakers Raptors game....

"Wasn't a big big big time recruit out of Chicago but man he has developed into something special".

How do these people get hired?????
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When Tua was knocked out of the game earlier this year, Al Michaels said the Fins had to go with Skylar Thompson because backup QB Teddy Bridgewater was also injured. Bridgewater retired last year and is the head coach at Miami Northwestern High School. I had to rewind it back to make sure he said that. 🤔
 
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Princecal said:
Per the announcer during the Lakers Raptors game....

"Wasn't a big big big time recruit out of Chicago but man he has developed into something special".

How do these people get hired?????
Click to expand...
There is alot of truth to it. Davis didn’t really become well known until after his {edit}junior senior{/edit}season was over.

I talk a little bit about it with regard to the Chicago Sun-Times accusations against him and his family.

Anthony Davis & the Chicago Sun-Times
 
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LineSkiCat14 said:
IIRC, didn't he really shoot up the rankings late? Like 6 or so months before the start of the season? I don't believe he was anything like a John wall or DJ Wagner who sat at the top of the rankings for a few seasons.

But uh.. that's now like 13 years ago or whatever 😕
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That is accurate. He wasn’t even ranked when Kentucky started getting involved. They basically passed on Quincey Miller to take AD and I remembered feeling really nervous about that. When the next rankings came out, he was #1 or 2 in all of them. So in a sense the guy was right because Davis came on REALLY late. I don’t even reminder if Kentucky had any competition for him because no one else knew he was that good.
 
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I guess it's understandable tho.

I can't tell you how many times during the MLB playoffs the national announcers said something and I thought "did you even watch the New York Mets this season at all" lol.

I could see why an NBA announcer wouldn't be 100% on his facts when it came to college basketball. TBH if Davis didn't go to Kentucky or we weren't involved in his recruitment, I wouldn't have known either lol.
 
He was relatively unknown until the summer before his senior year. So if the announcer was talking about that time-period, then sure. But by the time Davis was beginning classes at UK he was the #1 recruit and projected #1 draft pick.
 
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Davis is a fascinating case as a basketball fan in general.

It’s easy for UK fans to get incredulous about not knowing the story but it’s also so engrained in his story it’s perhaps a misstep to not mention it.

Guy got abused against freakin Transylvania for most of the game.

His maturation was one of the very rare “I’m seeing something special evolve” moments that took a couple months after the fact to realize.

Posted recently that SGA and Reed were others but Davis was different stratosphere. How fast and how impactful.
 
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JPScott said:
There is alot of truth to it. Davis didn’t really become well known until after his senior season was over.

I talk a little bit about it with regard to the Chicago Sun-Times accusations against him and his family.

Anthony Davis & the Chicago Sun-Times
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Sorry, that is just wrong. He blew up the summer before he became a senior. He was at least a top five recruit by the start of his senior year. He was the no. 1 recruit by the McDonalds All American game.
 
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For most of his high school career Michael Kidd Gilchrist was considered the next great player in basketball and was rated the number one player. Austin Rivers, Quincy Miller and Marquise Teague were the other big-time recruits at the time. The summer before his senior year Anthony Davis went from a top 100 recruit to the number one recruit by the end of the summer.
 
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jrpross said:
That is accurate. He wasn’t even ranked when Kentucky started getting involved. They basically passed on Quincey Miller to take AD and I remembered feeling really nervous about that. When the next rankings came out, he was #1 or 2 in all of them. So in a sense the guy was right because Davis came on REALLY late. I don’t even reminder if Kentucky had any competition for him because no one else knew he was that good.
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I don't think we passed on Miller, it was that honest Scott Drew outbid us. Worked out for the best.
 
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Princecal said:
Per the announcer during the Lakers Raptors game....

"Wasn't a big big big time recruit out of Chicago but man he has developed into something special".

How do these people get hired?????
Click to expand...
He wasn't recruited highly when he was a 6-2 sophomore and junior point guard, but when he grew to 6-11 and still had the guard skills, he took a huge leap, and he continued to climb all the way to #1 as his senior season progressed.

Calipari did some development with some of those guys, but it is overstated very often. We all know that he always recruited the top end players. And in some of those early years at UK he got a lot out of those guys. But in these later years he took great talent and underachieving over and over again.

The reason Cal won that 2012 title is because the NBA lockout that in 2011 kept Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb around for an extra season. Those 2 were #2 and #3 in scoring. Lamb was the best shooter on the team. Jones did a bit of everything. Otherwise, that season would have not been a success. If Cal pushed those guys out, as per his usual, that team would have ended like the rest of his teams at UK.
 
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Ignorance by that announcer with the same lack of knowledge about College Basketball as Michael Wilbon. He wasn't highly recruited before the growth spurt and would have gone to Cleveland State. His fortunes changed once he grew and became a top recruit, #1 pick.
 
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Fox2monk said:
Because the media just makes up lies and spews them unchecked with no punishment these days.
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Yes, announcers should be thrown in jail for the lie that Antthony Davis wasn't a big recruit, as long as you don't did deep in his pre senior career.
 
NerlensCat said:
Sorry, that is just wrong. He blew up the summer before he became a senior. He was at least a top five recruit by the start of his senior year. He was the no. 1 recruit by the McDonalds All American game.
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Yes, that's correct. He blew up after his Junior year. When I wrote that I was in a rush andI was going off memory without checking my own dates. Thanks for the correction.

Regardless, it is true that he was largely an unknown even to people in Chicago until that summer, so it's partly true that he wasn't a big time recruit for most of his prep career, that is until he suddenly was. So there's some truth to both sides of the story.

As I argue on the webpage, the fact that Davis chose to stay with his original high school rather than transfer to a Chicago High school basketball power seems to have ruffled some feathers in the city. As I note at the end of that section, Davis was named the High School player of the year nationally his senior year, but only came in fourth in the state of Illinois and failed to be named the top player in the city of Chicago.
 
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I remember the feeling going into the 2011-12 season that MKG was going to be the #1 player on our team. Davis was #2, but it became apparent quickly that he was the best player on the team after the UNC game
 
Saven said:
I remember the feeling going into the 2011-12 season that MKG was going to be the #1 player on our team. Davis was #2, but it became apparent quickly that he was the best player on the team after the UNC game
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Davis was a defensive dynamo. He would have had way more blocks, but teams realized very quickly not to test him near the paint. He affected the other teams offensive approach to the game. He was in their head before, during and after the game

He got better as the year went on offensively, but the team relied on Jones’s paint game, Miller and Lamb’s outside shooting and Teague and Gilchrist’s penetration for most of the offense. Davis basically got most of his points on lobs and put backs. It really was a team effort.

Obviously, he had way more offensive game than he showed during his one year at KY.
 
IL Wildcat said:
He wasn't recruited highly when he was a 6-2 sophomore and junior point guard, but when he grew to 6-11 and still had the guard skills, he took a huge leap, and he continued to climb all the way to #1 as his senior season progressed.

Calipari did some development with some of those guys, but it is overstated very often. We all know that he always recruited the top end players. And in some of those early years at UK he got a lot out of those guys. But in these later years he took great talent and underachieving over and over again.

The reason Cal won that 2012 title is because the NBA lockout that in 2011 kept Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb around for an extra season. Those 2 were #2 and #3 in scoring. Lamb was the best shooter on the team. Jones did a bit of everything. Otherwise, that season would have not been a success. If Cal pushed those guys out, as per his usual, that team would have ended like the rest of his teams at UK.
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This is one of those “what ifs…..” situations. Just imagine if the NBA hadn’t had the lock out and those guys had left? Kentucky probably doesn’t win the championship. Would Cal have lasted until the 23-24 season?
 
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Before he had his first practice in college he was the #1 recruit in the nation and projected number 1 pick in the NBA draft. Just because he wasn't highly rated as an underclassmen doesn't mean he wasn't a big time prospect when he came out of high school. Being number 1 in the freshman class doesn't mean much, that changes more often than not with kids growing or catching up. Wagner was the best in his earlier years but definitely wasn't when he was in his senior season which is what's more important
 
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