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Meet Jalen Adams, the next Shabazz Napier

Whenever a transendent stars graduates or departs there is always a void that needs to be filled. That chasm often feels to enormous to be bridged, yet given time, another talented young athlete will emerge and follow the path tread by his or her predecessors, leading their school back to glory.

In the case of UConn, the loss of Shabazz Napier looms like a giant shadow over the forthcoming 2014-15 men’s basketball season. Not to worry. Regardless of how this season turns out, there’s a ready-made replacement raring to go who should arrive in Storrs in fall 2015.

Jalen Adams is a 6-foot-2, 160-pound speedster of a point guard who hails from the Boston area. He was born and raised in Roxbury, but now competes for Cushing Academy and the Mass Rivals AAU squad, and you can see him excelling for Mass Rivals in this video. Adams has committed to play at UConn beginning with the 2015-16 season, and there’s no reason to doubt that he’ll follow through on that pledge. He has handles upon handles upon handles and an elusiveness both in traffic and in one-on-one situations on the break in the open court that is nearly unmatched.

Make no mistake, Adams isn’t a finished article yet. There are times when he can be sloppy with his dribble just because he has a hard time getting it to match with his blazing court speed. He’s also a missing the consistency that Napier flexed with his jumper late in his UConn career.

Still, just as Napier came from Boston to emerge as one of the NCAA’s best leaders at UConn, Adams appears to have much of the same DNA. It will be fun to see if he can progress as quickly in the years ahead.

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