Several of you have e-mailed me about the warm and fantastic story about Tyler Palko’s friendship with Chris McKough, a teen who has Down’s Syndrome. With whom he has already started the TC House Foundation.

There’s really not much to add to this. It’s a story to read in full. It speaks volumes about the character and person of Tyler Palko and his whole family. It is yet another reason why Palko is one of the most popular Panther in the school’s history.

Something that seems to be missing from a lot of draft talk, involves previous drafts where international players are not yet here.

But not every international basketball prospect joins the NBA immediately after hearing his name called on draft night. Many, including stars like Kirilenko, Peja Stojakovic of Serbia-Montenegro and Manu Ginobili of Argentina, remained in Europe for a couple of seasons after being drafted, honing their skills and ensuring that they were ready for the difficult transition to the NBA game and life in general in North America. In the past four NBA drafts, more and more teams are using their second-round picks to select promising international players they don’t plan to have on their rosters right away.

Some young international players need another year or more to fully develop their games in Europe before entering the cauldron of NBA play. Some simply need to play out their existing contracts, avoiding huge buyouts that can run more than a million dollars. Still others needs time to hit the weight room or get used to their new bodies after explosive growth spurts in their late teens or early 20s.
…
NBA draft rules make selecting an international player who would agree to stay overseas for a year to two, or who is contractually obligated to do so, especially attractive. Most players who played college basketball in the U.S. want to try to make the NBA as soon as they are drafted. If the player signs a contract and the team can’t find a roster spot for him right away, the player is then waived and becomes a free agent, and the drafting team loses all rights to him.

In contrast, if an NBA team drafts a player who is already playing professionally outside the U.S., the NBA team retains that player’s NBA draft rights as long as he is under contract. When the player informs the NBA team that he is free of any contractual obligation, the NBA team must present the player with what is known as a “required tender,” or contract offer. At that point, contract negotiations can begin.

This could have a big impact on the 2006 draft picks. A couple weeks ago, I noted the needs of teams in the second half of the 1st round. The New Jersey Nets at #22 and #23 have been speculated to be very likely to take a traditional center like Gray.

Maybe not. They have a 7-foot Center stashed in Europe.

Mile Ilic, FMP Zeleznik (Serbia & Montenegro)

Few basketball fans in the United States had ever heard the name Nenad Krstic when the New Jersey Nets plucked him with the 24th pick in the 2002 NBA draft. As it turned out, Nets president Rod Thorn and general manager Ed Stefanski had found a bona fide NBA big man who came into the league in 2004-05 and averaged 10 points and five rebounds right away. In his second season, Krstic became a full-time starter and averaged 13.5 points and 6.4 rebounds.

Now the Nets hope to cash in again with another big man from the same part of the world. Ilic, a Bosnian selected with the 43rd pick in the 2005 draft, is young (21) and not nearly as physically developed as Krstic, but he’s an athletic big man with a knack for blocking shots.

“He is a legitimate seven-footer with terrific hands,” said Stefanski. “He runs the court well and is athletic. If you have a seven-footer with great hands, that is step one to becoming a good player. He has to get an NBA body, and he is working on his body and has made progress. He has good tools. We are encouraged by his overall progress and we’ll be talking to his agent (Marc Cornstein) in the next couple of months to talk again about when it makes sense to bring him over here.”

One more reason why draft projections are becoming more unreliable overall and borderline worthless until after the June pre-Draft camp. At which point they are only somewhat unreliable.

Coming June 7.

Athlon is usually the first amongst the preview publications.

A decent Q&A with Orlando Antigua who as expected is going to be promoted to Assistant Basketball Coach at Pitt. Maybe a little too much talk about being with the Globetrotters. He is yet another guy who decided to settle down in Pittsburgh. Not coming back home, but making Pittsburgh his home.

Q: Is that why you retired?

Antigua: I was getting to the point where I knew I wouldn’t be able to play forever. I wanted to start the next phase of my career. I worked for Pat Cavanaugh’s company in the North Hills and got some great experience in the corporate world there. When I was there, I worked with Joey David on his staff at Mt. Lebanon and then came the opportunity to be a part of coach Dixon’s staff.

Q: Did you always want to be a coach?

Antigua: I wasn’t sure. My brother was a coach. Sometimes, as a player I thought I was a coach (laughs). I was always intrigued by the strategy of the game, the game-planning. Being the director of basketball operations that gave me an idea of the administrative side of things, and I got to see whether I wanted to be involved in the coaching aspect.

…

Q: You’ve had opportunities to leave Pitt for assistant-coaching positions the past couple of years. Why did you stay at Pitt?

Antigua: It’s home. It’s where a lot of my opportunities have flourished. Even when I was a Globetrotter, I never really left. I’ve always lived in Pittsburgh. It’s the university that gave me an opportunity to earn a degree, and I’ve met some wonderful people here. That’s one of the reasons I have a tattoo of a Panther on my arm. It’s a reminder of no matter where I go, I’ll always be a Pitt Panther. I had the opportunity to help mold some very good players here. It was a great opportunity to show my passion for the university.

As a brief, unrelated to sports, digression, these are the kind of stories the City of Pittsburgh needs to keep in mind and should promote. People who come from elsewhere to live and settle in the city. It’s all well and good to want to keep the people born and raised in the area around — and don’t I hear enough about the ‘brain drain’ complaint in Cleveland — but just as important is getting new people coming and staying.

People who don’t just talk about how the city was and aren’t tied to those things, but want to go forward in the city and community. People who fall in love with the area, find it comfortable and want to make it home. As a non-native Western PAer who went to Pitt and loved the city and misses it, I enjoy reading things like that and the way recent commit Pat Bostick spoke of the City as well as the school.

Q: Which Pitt player will surprise the most next season?

Antigua: That’s a great question. I would say probably Levon [Kendall]. Actually, it’s a toss-up between two or three guys. I would also say Ronald [Ramon] and Sam Young. Sam is just starting to scratch the surface of the player he can become.

How many would have expected him to say Kendall? As long as Kendall’s back doesn’t cause him big problems he could be very important to the inside game. Especially if Gray doesn’t come back.

Imagine being a multi-talented athlete. An All-American football player and turning down pro sports for teaching. It wouldn’t happen today except for medical reasons. It was a different era.

Hubert R. “Hub” Randour, an All-America halfback at the University of Pittsburgh and the first head football coach in the fledgling Penn Hills School District, where he taught for 42 years, died Friday. Mr. Randour, of Penn Hills, was 91.

Mr. Randour played at Pitt for legendary Coach Jock Sutherland from 1933 to 1935 on a team that lost only three games during that three-year span.

After graduating from Pitt in 1936, Mr. Randour declined offers from the Steelers, Brooklyn Dodgers and Philadelphia Eagles to accept the head coaching position with the new Penn Hills High School. The school’s first football and basketball teams included only ninth- and 10th-graders. Students then were housed at the former Stevens Elementary School until the new high school was built on Saltsburg Road.

He was also the science teacher at Penn Hills. Just got advice against playing professional football at that time.

“He even signed a contract with the Steelers, but never showed up for training camp,” his son added. “His brother, George, who was an all-star football player at the University of Wisconsin, warned him that the pros were not for him.”

Mr. Randour left his teaching and coaching position to enlist in the Navy during World War II.

“Dad was sent to Bainbridge (Md.) Naval Base as a physical fitness instructor,” said his son. “He had the opportunity to work with former boxing champion Gene Tunney, which he appreciated.

“Dad often said he was fortunate to have had Jock Sutherland as his football coach at Pitt and Gene Tunney as the head instructor at the Naval Base.”

Mr. Randour was assigned to Grove City College, Mercer County, as the physical fitness director at the Naval Radio School located on the campus.

Eventually, he attended gunnery school at the Norfolk Naval Base in Virginia, and became a gunnery officer in the Pacific Theater.

All Condolences to the family.