By Jessy Dhillon
Lower mainland’s own Manroop Clair has made the Junior Men’s National Basketball team. The Junior Men’s National Team (JMNT) training camp, which was held at Ottawa’s Ryerson University started on June 9 with 22 of the best young Canadian basketball players the nation has to offer. Manroop and his team will play in the 2013 FIBA U19 World Championship in Prague, Czech Republic. The tournament starts on June 27 and ends July 7. Unfortunately Manroop will not have a chance to play alongside Andrew Wiggins, who is the projected number 1 draft pick in the 2014 NBA draft (Wiggins has been compared to LeBron James) I feel that it is not necessarily all bad that Manroop and the rest of his teammate will not get to play with Wiggins because it give an opportunity for more playing time and exposure for the rest of the team.
Manroop spent the past season playing basketball at the University of Hawaii getting a chance to play against major American universities such as Illinois, Ole Miss and Miami. Before attending Hawaii, Manroop finished his high school career at Huntington Prep in West Virginia after transferring over from Burnaby South Secondary. Huntington Prep is a school that focuses on preparing their players for division 1 university basketball in the United States. It is truly a great achievement on just making the Huntington Prep program. Manroop is transferring to Seattle University from Hawaii where he will have to sit out a year but still have 3 years of eligibility left.
Not since the legendary Pasha Bains has there been an Indo-Canadian basketball player in Canada with the skill that Manroop possesses. Dude can shoot out the lights! Pasha Bains was an all-star MVP for the Richmond High Colts in the late 90’s. Bains torched the BC AAA Provincials with an amazing 317 points over 12 games played in the prestigious tournament. Manroop is a product of Pasha Bains’ Drive Basketball, so it does not surprise me that he has reached such great heights for playing basketball. Having coached High School basketball for the previous five years at Matthew McNair Secondary (my former high school) I have an invested interest in the development of youth basketball. I feel with the success Manroop is having, he can motivate and pave the way for young Indo-Canadian’s to follow Manroop and Pasha’s footsteps and play for NCAA universities and possibly one day make the NBA.
It is a shame that the National Basketball League gave up on the Vancouver Grizzlies so quickly. If the Grizzlies had stayed in Vancouver it would have had a trickle-down effect at the grass roots of youth basketball in BC. If you look at our Jr. Men’s basketball roster you will see the majority of players are from Ontario. Manroop is the only player from British Columbia. Even though Ontario does have a bigger population than BC; I feel that since Ontario has the Toronto Raptors, more kids are exposed to the game of basketball. Ontario youth are motivated to play the game of basketball because they see these Raptors’ stars making public appearances, hosting youth camps or opening new basketball courts. I feel we would see many more players coming out of B.C. if the Grizzlies had stuck around.
Speaking of Basketball… LeBron James is a much better player when he is playing with 4 role players. In game 6, the Heat were facing elimination down 10 points in the 4th quarter. Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh were both out taking a rest. LeBron James single handily took the lead for the Heat. Every possession for the Heat was going through Lebron. He had his role players all around the court. Mike Miller, Mario Chalmers and Ray Allen were scattered around the 3 point line which spread out the Spurs defense and Chris Andersen was inside battling for rebounding position. Lebron is most dangerous when he has a shooter or two he can kick it out to when he drives to the basket. This always keeps the defense spread out just enough because they have to worry about the 3 point shot. The little extra space Lebron is given is all he needs to slash to the hoop for the easy bucket. When Dwayne got back on the court, it seemed that LeBron; the unselfish player he is, wanted to get Miami’s other superstar involved. The Spurs came back and took the lead and looked like they would finish off the Heat, if not for Ray Allen’s heroics in the end, the Spurs would have won the series in six games. If Team President Pat Riley is a smart man, he will try to unload both Chris Bosh and Dwayne Wade in the off-season and use the money he saves on the two contracts on solid young role players who will compliment Lebron’s game.
When you get a chance to read this the series will be over. So I will not give a finals prediction for game 7, but I will give you this prediction: If Pat Riley does not get rid of Wade and Bosh; LeBron James will opt out of his contract with the Miami Heat after next season and go back to Cleveland.
