When Larry Bird entered the NBA, he had plenty of doubters. He didn’t pass the eye test: he was slow, couldn’t jump, and was ghostly white.
Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan figured it out quickly. Writing in Basketball Weekly, early in Bird’s rookie season, he explained what people didn’t get about Bird.
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To be clear, Cameron Boozer is not Larry Bird, but like a lot of guys who are perceived as slow and not as athletic as they might be, he’s getting that particular tag.
Skip Bayless, not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, is beating that drum, tweeting this out on X: “Love his dad but don’t love-love Cameron Boozer in the NBA. Just not that explosively athletic. But he is a very good, extremely well-taught basketball player who will give you all he has every night and provide solid leadership.”
First, good to know he loves Carlos, but maybe he forgot that the elder Boozer had a similar rap coming out of college and was actually a second-round pick, going to Cleveland with the 35th pick.
At the time, people questioned his athleticism, his lack of verticality, and worried that he was a ‘tweener, too small for center and not quick enough for power forward. They worried about his shot, too, and questioned his foot speed.
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Any of this ringing a bell?
Well, things worked out okay for Carlos, and Cameron enters the league as a vastly more skilled young player than was his father.
Whatever you can say about Cameron, his fundamentals, his grasp of the game, and his sheer intelligence have been major factors in his success.
Red Auerbach, patriarch of the Boston Celtics, liked to simplify the game. About Boozer, he might have said, look, he can shoot, he can rebound, he can pass, he plays defense, and he doesn’t screw up very often. What’s not to like?
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