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NBA rosters prove UNC dominance
Proverbs aren't always true. Lead a horse to water at a gallop, and you probably can make him drink. And thanks to helpful readers of The Hoop Life, I can share the truth about that old saw concerning Michael Jordan -- that Dean Smith was the only guy who could hold MJ under 20. It's false. Jordan averaged exactly 20.0 points a game during his sophomore season, reader Tom Melton points out. Another reader, Colin Newlin, extrapolates that figure over a 48-minute game and arrives at an average of 24 a game. Factor in the NBA's shorter shot clock and its ban on zones, and we should have seen Jordan's career professional scoring average of 31.5 points coming. I'd cited that old maxim about Mike and Deano in my last column to debunk it -- to knock down the widely held premise that talented ballplayers get straitjacketed in Chapel Hill only to bust loose upon reaching the pros. In fact, I argued that ex-Tar Heels prosper in the pros because of, not in spite of, their stopovers in Blue Heaven. There's evidence beyond the obvious examples -- the presence of Vince Carter, Jerry Stackhouse and Antawn Jamison near the top of the NBA's scoring rankings. This season opened with 10 other erstwhile Heels, more than any other NCAA school, on NBA rosters. And it's striking how many of them, beyond stars like the aforementioned three and Rasheed Wallace, are journeymen, role players or both. In other words, Smith and Bill Guthridge prepared their guys well enough that some team somewhere always seems to find a place for them. For those of you scoring at home, the Carolina 13 are Carter, Stackhouse, Jamison, Wallace, Hubert Davis, Rick Fox, George Lynch, Jeff McInnis, Eric Montross, Sam Perkins, J.R. Reid, Scott Williams and Shammond Williams. We could trot out another old basketball one-liner to describe some of them -- "He has been cut more times than George Chuvalo " (that was Rich Kelley's comment about former UNLV guard Robert Smith, the Lord of the 10-Day). Or we could simply credit their longevity to the pale-blue blood coursing through their veins. Davis, Montross and Scott Williams have played for 11 NBA teams among them -- and certainly not because they're constantly being released for being bad citizens. But we still haven't mentioned the greatest example of the pull of a Carolina pedigree. After spending most of his college career playing behind Montross and Kevin Salvadori -- and before fulfilling his destiny to become a banker in Houston -- Matt Wenstrom spent the 1993-94 season with the Boston Celtics. Swen Nater carved out a living in the pros after an apprenticeship as UCLA's backup center. But how many third-string centers have ever made an NBA roster? Sports Illustrated senior writer Alexander Wolff is author of Big Game, Small World: A Basketball Adventure, which will be published in January 2002 by Warner Books. Send comments to thehooplife@aol.com.
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