See if you can connect these dots: Kentucky, Oklahoma, Texas, Illinois, Syracuse, Wake Forest, Kansas, Connecticut, Memphis, UCLA, Florida, Georgia Tech and Marquette. Know what these schools all have in common? Each school sent at least one player to this year's NBA All-Star Game, and are either known as basketball powers or were powerful when they featured these players.
Only Joe Johnson from Arkansas came from a non-hoops power that did not have a tremendous season. In fact, scanning the top of John Hollinger's PER rankings at season's end, only Kevin Martin (Western Carolina), Steve Nash (Santa Clara), and Paul Millsap (Louisiana Tech) came from colleges with little hoops tradition or astounding success when they were in school (though Nash's team was very good for his last two years).
In other words, rare is the prominent NBA player who came from a small school or a big school that did not achieve great success while he was playing there. What does this mean for Reggie Jackson, who's hoping to be the third player from Boston College in the past 15 years to enter the NBA and carve out a career? Let's explore.
To read David Thorpe's evaluation of Reggie Jackson's potential, you must be an ESPN Insider.
David Thorpe
NBA- NBA Analyst for ESPN.com
- Executive director of Pro Training Center
- Started coaching career in 1987
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David Thorpe
David Thorpe is an NBA analyst for ESPN.com's Scouts Inc. and the executive director of the Pro Training Center in Clearwater, Fla., where he oversees the player development program for NBA and college players. David has trained Kevin Martin, Corey Brewer, Omri Casspi, Joakim Noah, Luol Deng, Tyrus Thomas, Yi Jianlian, Courtney Lee, Kyrylo Fesenko, Earl Clark, Jrue Holiday, DeJuan Blair and others.
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