Melwing wrote:niha17 wrote:why
To scout basketball players
if any ex-player was built for this, it's probably ish.
he certainly knows what habits made him a successful pro-- didn't just show up and ride his natural talent
48% FT shooter at Wake Forest, including 16/55 (29%) as a soph starter playing 32 mpg
... Yet managed to make 500+ FT in the pros on almost 70%
The epitome of the "daily rise + grind" culture, and has been moving/traveling his whole adult life (13 cities in 14 years)
^This is at the root of what scouting lifestyle is.
As a player Ish has seen all highs and lows:
Was one of the top recruits nationally (Scout's #1 PG), but from a regular public high school north of Charlotte, not a prep academy.
Stayed local, following in the footsteps of another Piedmont NBA guy (CP3) to a Wake Forest team that was #2 in the AP preseason polls during the summer he committed... but then completely fell apart during Smith's senior HS year -- went .500 and missed the NCAA tournament and finished unranked for the first time in 5 years... so he joined a middling ACC team.
Plenty of adversity: His coach died on the job after his freshman year from heart failure (RIP the great Skip Prosser).
Ish started every game as a freshman and sophomore season, only to lose his job to Jeff Teague as a junior -- yet played a vital reserve role in helping his team to AP #1 in the polls.
Won his starting job back as a senior and led the team to an NCAA tournament upset victory over Avery Bradley's Longhorns.
...only to go undrafted and have to work his way into the Assoc. via the then-G League.
Just a great story, culminating with his Nuggets' ring at age 35.
I'm sure he'll have a long post playing career if he wants it