MIKE Breen needs to get his MSG-TV facts straight. So does studio host Al Trautwig. So do a multitude of reporters and broadcasters who claim Brandon Jennings — the point guard the Knicks let get away in last June’s draft and already the Bucks’ leader — “chose” to go to Europe versus college (Arizona).
Nonsense!
Nothing could be further from the truth. Jennings took his SATs and didn’t do well. So he took them again. His scores were quite a bit higher on his second try. As a rule, when that happens to a student-athlete, another do-over is requested. So he went for the trifecta, but never qualified academically.
Meanwhile, two Arizona assistants, Josh Pastner and Miles Simon, left or were fired. Pastner, whom Jennings liked immensely, absconded to Memphis to work for John Calipari. Simon was axed without explanation.
Pastner was Arizona’s lead recruiter and, at that time, the program was in turmoil. Lute Olson hadn’t so much as called Jennings once after he signed his Letter of Intent. He was on leave for unspecified reasons. It came out much later the Wildcats’ head coach had suffered a minor stroke.
Given the SAT turbulence and the fact Arizona was imploding, Jennings had no option but to play in Italy. In April, ’08, Bill Feinberg, a friend of the family, broached Brandon’s mom, Alice Knox, about him playing in Europe.
She told Feinberg he was crazy. But when Sonny Vaccaro — sultan of the sneaker business and an outspoken critic, as I am, of the NBA’s 19-year-old rule concocted by Commissioner David Stern and approved by the Player’s Association — got involved, it became an overnight reality.
Vaccaro envisioned Jennings as an ideal trend setter, an extrovert with unshakable confidence, maturity, toughness and spirit who had all the right skills as well as an especially high basketball IQ.
Outwardly, Brandon was the textbook, test-tube (high school) baby to send overseas to play pro ball.
It also took a brave parent to green-stamp her child making such a brazen move.
Vaccaro arranged for Jennings to play for Roma for a year at little financial risk for the team. It’s my understanding Under Armour bankrolled the weight of his year’s intake. What Vaccaro failed to envision is that an unproven player parading Jennings’ quickness and pace is unsuited for the European game.
Nevertheless, despite inconsistent minutes and recitals (funny how that works), Jennings lived well below his means (and continues to do so), never copped an attitude or disrespected his coach and benefited from the humbling experience.
At Brandon’s New York City draft party at the Maritime Hotel, Feinberg and Jennings spoke for a few minutes.
“I congratulated him and asked if he was happy,” Feinberg recalls. “He was a bit down and shook his head. He said he was excited to be drafted, but wondered if going to Italy caused him to be drafted lower.”
Feinberg told him to disinfect his mind.
“Those were choices made by executives in the lottery. There’s a reason that most teams are in the lottery — bad management decisions.
“I told him his choice was absolutely correct. He improved as a player, provided a stable financial boost for his mother and brother, and made a statement to the NCAA and NBA; he got an Under Armour sneaker contract worth $1.2 million and an $800,000 salary. There’s nothing to feel bad about.
“Now he has a coach who appreciates everything he has to offer and puts the ball in his hands. Not too shabby.”
As for Breen, performing a remarkable old soft-shoe routine Saturday evening in Milwaukee after the Bucks had gone ahead by about a hundred, notified the few remaining listeners, he is not about to concede the Knicks made a boo-boo by opting for Jordan Hill at No. 8 vs. Jennings.
“It’s too early to reach that conclusion,” Breen alleged in an interminable nursery rhyme, temporarily keeping Knicks President Donnie Walsh, coach Mike D’Antoni and Arthur Godrey’s talent questors (I seem to remember European sleuth Isiah Thomas also contributing his two lire to this decision) off the house hook, if nowhere else.
Apparently it’s beside the point, so to speak, the Knicks craved a playmaker and instead tripled their work force. Granted, they may be forced to renounce David Lee to make room for LeBron James or Dwyane Wade (I get it … but, still) at power forward.
Just as it was evidently irrelevant the previous June that the Knicks craved a center and a caretaker and instead doubled their work force at power forward.
In many cases, Breen’s tempered soliloquy would merit our consideration.
In most cases, seven games into a season (1-6 at the time) is too early to reach a definitive judgment regarding a team and especially a rookie.
With all due respect to Hill, whose capabilities can’t be expected to bud devoid a requisite amount of daylight, and Toney Douglas (nine of team-high 21 points in the fourth quarter of last night’s 2-point loss to the Jazz), whom D’Antoni discovered of late by default, it’s not too early.
In this case, all it takes is just one look at Brandon Jennings to trigger images of Tiny Archibald and agonize over what could have been.
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