Sports
Hoop dreams don’t die on his watch. Mike Creppy finds new life for players overseas
Justin Pierce wasn’t coming again.
He’d spent 4 years bouncing round Los Angeles gyms — even residing in a single — only for a shot at an expert basketball profession. He’d spent the 2 years earlier than that, following a taking part in profession at Averett College in Danville, Va., saving his pennies for G League tryouts. He’d been scammed, swindled and sucked into the maw of the cash machine that’s the below-deck skilled basketball world and spit out with out a lot as a spot to stay.
However in September, the 32-year-old Pierce was summoned by Mike Creppy, chief govt of the L.A.-based worldwide consulting agency Vindicated Sports activities, to accompany the company to a showcase in Uruguay. Coming off a five-month stint in Costa Rica the place he’d averaged greater than 30 factors a sport for the Caribe Jaguares, Pierce was decided to earn a deal by any means vital.
He purchased a one-way airplane ticket. He wasn’t going residence empty-handed. Not once more.
“I used to be like, ‘There’s no means I’m lacking this,’” Pierce stated. “I ain’t don’t have any cash to come back again in any case.”
There’s a sure class of hardcourt grinders in Los Angeles that exist between the margins, between G League and semipro, who attempt for an opportunity to play overseas. Based on the RealGM web site, greater than 80 gamers from L.A. alone have performed abroad. Some are former NBA professionals resembling Jordan Farmar, two-time NBA champion with the Lakers. However many, like Pierce, are small-college merchandise with divergent resumes.
Justin Pierce, whereas taking part in for Averett College, drives in opposition to an opponent.
(W. David Conner II / Averett College)
For them, taking part in abroad is a Holy Grail, one with no clear GPS route. The enterprise is cutthroat, gamers say. In the event you aren’t cautious, a participant can find yourself useless broke or caught midway the world over spinning his wheels.
“It’s nearly like operating with no end line,” Creppy stated. “They don’t know the place they’re operating to.”
::
Popping out of Averett, Pierce had no plan. Few gamers do once they don’t have a direct path to the NBA.
But he believed his calling in life was to play skilled basketball, and after two aimless years on the East Coast, Pierce again moved to Southern California to concentrate on coaching.
The basketball half was one factor. Dwelling was the extra urgent challenge. After his roommate scenario soured, Pierce moved into his coach’s workplace house in an area health club. It was smaller than a dorm room and had no home windows.
What it did have, nonetheless, had been wonderful photographs of NBA legends hanging on its partitions. Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson and Larry Chook would sneer down at Pierce day by day.
“You have a look at your self, and it’s like, man, dude, you don’t bought no automobile, you don’t bought no job,” Pierce stated. “I’m in a health club. I’m homeless, bro.”
For a lot of in Pierce’s scenario, damage or private circumstance threw a wrench in plans for a professional profession.
Former Panorama Metropolis St. Genevieve Excessive participant Marcel Burton, 23, was damage his senior yr at Division II Lincoln College in Jefferson Metropolis, Mo., and has spent the final two years coaching in L.A. to place himself on the skilled radar. Zena Edosomwan, 28, was a top-100 recruit at Studio Metropolis Harvard-Westlake Excessive, graduated from Harvard after which spent two years rehabbing from knee accidents.
“It’s just like the wild, wild west. What’s setting you aside?”
— Zena Edosomwan, former highschool and school basketball star on making it as an expert participant.
Zena Edosomwan powers his technique to the basket in opposition to BYU ahead Kyle Davis whereas taking part in for Harvard throughout a match sport in Hawaii in December 2015.
(Eugene Tanner / Related Press)
Creppy, an abroad veteran of greater than a decade, had his hopes for a promising profession at UC Riverside dashed when he suffered a nasty shoulder separation after a automobile crash that killed a teammate.
They weren’t keen to let their dream die, and taking part in abroad supplied an opportunity to make a residing. However most golf equipment have a roster quota for United States imports. Battling for a spot abroad is extremely aggressive, stated Edosomwan, who’s simply starting a stint in Canada.
“It’s just like the wild, wild west,” Edosomwan stated. “What’s setting you aside?”
Sacrifice. That’s what all of them pointed to as a difference-maker — the willingness to battle. To economize for a dream, relatively than indulging within the extravagance that Los Angeles dangles like a carrot.
However that dream could make gamers journey over themselves speeding into a chance.
::
Clutching his cellphone and sun shades, Creppy paced the sideline. He turned away from the squeaks of sneakers behind him, holding the cellphone near his ear.
“Why do you must fly from Thessaloniki to Tbilisi?” he requested Joshua Nurse, the voice on the road. “Uh-huh. Are you certain?”
Joshua Nurse battles for possession of the ball with Virginia heart Jack Salt (33) whereas taking part in for St. Francis in school.
(Ryan M. Kelly / Related Press)
His consideration is abruptly diverted from watching Burton prepare in a sweaty Chatsworth health club. Nurse, at that second marooned in North Macedonia whereas taking part in for the KK Kosuv of the Prva Liga, is in disaster mode.
“They by no means bought your visa?” Creppy stated, voice rising ever so barely. “Oh yeah, we’ll get you out of there.”
Improper documentation may have led to a border patrol stopping Nurse earlier than his flight, asking why on earth he’d been within the nation for greater than three months and not using a visa. Creppy is aware of his consumer may very well be spending the night time in a frigid holding cell. He’d seen it occur earlier than.
So he pulled up Nurse’s contract on his cellphone, pinching the display with two fingers. Glad with an answer, Creppy positioned the cellphone to his mouth and uttered a agency set of instructions: Inform the membership you’re requesting an instantaneous termination of the contract due to improper visa submitting and late funds.
He hung up, a drained smile peeking on the nook of his mouth.
“It’s day by day,” Creppy stated.
Creppy warned Nurse about taking this contract. The large man, averaging simply two factors a sport with KK Kosuv, had rushed right into a dedication out of eagerness.
It’s a lure Creppy sees abroad hopefuls fall into repeatedly. In 2017, Creppy launched Vindicated and printed a guidebook for enjoying abroad as a result of he wished to assist gamers who’d skilled the identical pitfalls he had.
At each fork within the street, there’s a membership providing a contract stuffed with crimson flags, an company providing illustration that can settle for cash and switch silent, a showcase providing publicity that finally ends up being “pointless,” as Burton put it.
“There’s so many dishonest and crooked folks. It’s predatory.”
— Mike Creppy, on securing alternatives and contracts for gamers abroad
Mike Creppy poses for a photograph at Angels Gate Park in San Pedro, close to his residence.
(Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Instances)
Out of the blue, just a few years earlier, an e mail popped into Pierce’s inbox with a proposal to play for a workforce within the Netherlands. It was a breath of contemporary air at a time he was technically homeless.
“I don’t know nothing at this level,” Pierce recalled. “I’m telling my trainers, like, ‘We did it!’”
The sender requested for cash to get Pierce there. He scraped collectively what little money he had, even reaching out to relations. However weeks handed with radio silence. Pierce grew suspicious.
After some on-line looking out, the reality slapped him within the face: The corporate didn’t exist. The workforce identify the e-mail talked about was related to a rip-off. He’d simply blown his restricted funds on a long-awaited likelihood to play abroad that by no means existed.
“That was the primary time I really considered quitting,” Pierce stated. “I’m doing all this simply to get scammed?”
“In the event you’re determined and so they odor blood,” he continued later, “they may promote you your dream.”
::
Pierce may’ve wiped the slate clear. Might’ve hung up the sneakers, moved again to Virginia, gotten a job at a T-Cell or Dash retailer. Might’ve had stability.
Justin Pierce (22) was an all-conference basketball and soccer participant at Averett College, an NCAA Division III school.
(W. David Conner II / Averett College)
That wasn’t his future, he felt. So Pierce lived in that workplace for 3 years, listening to persistent encouragement from trainers, feeling flashes of validation from figuring out alongside NBA gamers.
He got here to view his scenario as a blessing. He may roll away from bed within the morning, head downstairs and stroll onto a courtroom with a capturing machine.
“Now we have to be keen to make the sacrifice it takes to get there,” Pierce stated, “as a result of in any other case you’ll rot away attempting to determine why it’s not working.”
Ultimately, the arduous work paid off with the Costa Rica gig. After Pierce completed torching nets there, Creppy invited him to Uruguay, through the worldwide signing interval.
Pierce had poured seven years into this uncharted path of dream-chasing, seven years of sweat and tears and empty pockets. So he booked the one-way ticket. Now, after impressing in that showcase, Pierce is taking part in for Olivol Mundial of the Liga Uruguaya.
Life’s been bizarre. He’s residing in a one-bedroom home with no central air con. Again in Costa Rica, his coach was his roommate, and as they’d stroll the streets day by day, a parade of stray canine and chickens would jaunt previous.
Every little thing’s completely different. Nevertheless it isn’t the within of a health club workplace. Pierce isn’t going again.
ORLANDO, Fla. — Well, the glass-one-quarter-full perspective on the Bronny James Show this weekend is to say it could have been worse. But it certainly could have been better.
The NBA G League Winter Showcase came to Orlando, Fla., this weekend, and with the Los Angeles Lakers’ decision to assign James for this event, he immediately became the star attraction, with both games nationally televised.
This was a 20-year-old rookie playing his third month of professional basketball, and I’ve certainly seen more tragic performances from young prospects learning the hard way at this level. But on a court mostly filled with players whose NBA careers will be measured in 10-day increments, James failed to stand out and at times struggled to keep up.
He got off to a hot start in his first game Thursday en route to a 16-point, five-assist night but struggled badly in the second one (six points, seven assists, six turnovers) and was plagued by cringe ballhandling miscues in both. Single-game plus-minus is pretty unreliable, but James taking home a minus-13 in a game his team won by 16 on Saturday conformed with the general eye test.
Based on James’ other G League performances, these two games were not outliers. James drew attention earlier this month by scoring 30 points in a G League game against the Valley Suns, but that was far and away his best outing. In his other seven games at this level, he’s shot just 24 of 76 with an alarming turnover rate.
No, we don’t have this level of scrutiny for other late second-round round picks, many of whom have struggled just as badly or worse in their first two G League seasons (*cough* Maxwell Lewis *cough*). At least three players drafted ahead of James have been demonstrably worse in their G League minutes this season, and several others have failed to distinguish themselves as notably better.
But if you’re looking for something to get excited about, Lakers fans, I’m not sure I have much for you just yet.
Let’s start with the positives. James showed some flashes of pick-and-roll viability in his on-ball reps, especially when he could start the move with a hard dribble left around the screen. He was comfortable getting to a right-handed floater going that way and judicious about snaking it back to his right hand to either get to the rim or force a rotation and hit the big man.
In grab-and-goes and other transition situations, his hit-ahead passes were on point and caused problems for opponents. James also showed his two-footed leaping ability at times, including an impressive traffic rebound Saturday and a flying swat in transition.
Unfortunately, that didn’t offset the other areas in which he fell short. Generally a player ready to contribute at the NBA level will cook G League defenses pretty easily, especially an aspiring guard. James’ South Bay teammate Devonte’ Graham, for instance, rolled in off his couch and scored 24 on Saturday after going unsigned following his 2023-24 season in San Antonio.
For James, that did not happen. He struggled to control his dribble at several points, a red flag for a small guard who is listed at 6-foot-3. In Saturday’s second half, he committed the holy trinity of turnovers trying to bring the ball up against pressure, getting his dribble picked on one trip, failing to clear the backcourt in eight seconds on another and wandering back into the backcourt on a third. Asking him to play the point feels like a complete non-starter.
In the half court, he could work with a screen, but isolations were a different story. James has no wiggle to his game and couldn’t shake defenders in one-on-one matchups after switches and hasn’t established himself as a legitimate 3-point threat either on or off the ball. He made two of his eight attempts from 3 in Orlando and is 7-of-33 from distance in his G League season. Between that and his limited ability to get to the cup on his own steam, his true shooting percentage of 45.4 heading into Saturday was alarmingly poor.
Of perhaps equal concern is that James’ likely role at the NBA level would be as an athletic energy guy, but his motor just doesn’t seem to run that hot and cut out at several different points. James is a good athlete with a strong frame, but you don’t “feel” him in the course of a game because his activity level is so low. Notably, there were several moments when he lazed back in transition rather than sprinting back to interfere with an opposing break; off the ball, he wasn’t nearly as active or handsy as you would hope for a small guard.
In what is perhaps a related story, fatigue seemed to be a real issue for him in both games, especially after a few minutes on the court. It was only two games, but watching him here, it sure seemed like he’d start each stint on the court with two or three good minutes, and then his glitch rate would go through the roof soon after.
Ultimately, the takeaway from many here to chronicle his performance was to go ahead and get familiar with our surroundings, because we’ll probably be doing the same thing again next year. The same can be said of a lot of the players here, especially the late draft picks, but only one of them is the son of a legendary superstar.
(Photo of Bronny James: Scott Audette / NBAE via Getty Images)
Sports
Chiefs' Patrick Mahomes eases ankle injury concerns, sets personal rushing mark on touchdown run
The status of Patrick Mahomes’ ankle was widely discussed leading up to Saturday’s game between the Kansas City Chiefs and Houston Texans.
While there was some doubt during the week whether the star quarterback would play against the Texans, he was able to fully get through the Chiefs’ practice Thursday.
Mahomes was cleared to play and finished Saturday’s 27-19 victory over Houston with 260 passing yards.
But the three-time Super Bowl winner turned some heads when he managed to stay on his feet after nearly being tripped and sprinted into the end zone for the first score of the game.
Patrick Mahomes (15) of the Kansas City Chiefs runs past Danielle Hunter (55) of the Houston Texans in the first quarter of a game at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium Dec. 21, 2024, in Kansas City, Mo. (Jason Hanna/Getty Images)
Mahomes was sidelined in the fourth quarter of the Chiefs’ Week 15 game against the Cleveland Browns. Backup quarterback Carson Wentz stepped in for Mahomes and finished the 21-7 win over the Browns with 20 passing yards.
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Mahomes’ 15-yard scramble Saturday marked the longest rushing touchdown of his career. Moments after Mahomes crossed the goal line, broadcaster Noah Eagle wondered, “What bum ankle?”
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes (15) throws a pass during the first half against the Houston Texans at GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, Mo., Dec. 21, 2024. (Jay Biggerstaff/Imagn Images)
This was not the first time Mahomes dealt with an ankle injury.
Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes chews his mouth guard during warmups before a game against the Denver Broncos Nov. 10, 2024 in Kansas City, Mo. (AP Photo/Reed Hoffmann, File)
During the 2022 NFL postseason, Mahomes sustained what appeared to be a high ankle sprain in a divisional round playoff game against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
The win over the Texans improved the Chiefs’ record to 14-1. Kansas City had already clinched a playoff berth after winning the AFC West a ninth straight year.
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Don’t doubt the Eastvale Roosevelt Mustangs this basketball season. Runner-up to Harvard-Westlake last season in the Southern Section Open Division final, the Mustangs return most of their top players and gave everyone a reminder of how good they could be by winning the Tarkanian Classic Platinum Division championship on Saturday at Bishop Gorman High in Las Vegas.
Roosevelt (11-1) fell behind by as many as 15 points in the early going before handing Sherman Oaks Notre Dame (12-1) its first defeat 76-58. Brayden Burries, considered the best unsigned senior in California, was named tournament MVP and finished with 26 points. Issac Williamson had 19 points and Dominic Copenhagen 10.
Notre Dame trailed 35-34 at halftime and by 10 points after three quarters. Lino Mark received little playing time because of an apparent injury. Tyran Stokes had 20 points and 11 rebounds while Zachary White added 18 points for Notre Dame.
Redondo Union 79, Layton Christian 66: The Sea Hawks (10-1) took third place in the Platinum Division of the Tarkanian Classic. Hudson Mayes made 10 of 15 shots and finished with 24 points. SJ Madison added 18 points.
Leuzinger 75, Denver South 66: In overtime, Leuzinger won its division in the Tarkanian Classic. Joshua Garland scored 23 points and tournament MVP Malachi Knight had 17 points for 10-3 Leuzinger.
Seattle Rainier Beach 82, Westchester 74: Tajh Ariza scored 36 points in the loss for the Comets.
Chatsworth 75, Wilsonville (Ore.) 45: Alijah Arenas had 25 points, 10 rebounds and 10 assists for the Chancellors (8-1) in Oregon. Tekeio Phillips added 13 points.
St. Pius X-St. Matthias 88, Arizona Basha 67: Harvard-bound Douglas Langford Jr. finished with 37 points.
Camarillo 76, Righetti 27: The Scorpions improved to 12-1 behind Jackson Yeates and Cajun Mike-Price, both of whom had 16 points.
Saugus 64, Palisades 62: Bryce Mejia made the game-winning basket for Saugus and finished with 17 points. Max Guardado led the way for the Centurions with 25 points.
Santa Margarita 87, Murrieta Valley 64: Kaiden Bailey made five threes and finished with 18 points and Drew Anderson added 18 points for the 8-1 Eagles.
Foothill 65, Ventura 42: Lorenzo Turner had 15 points for 10-3 Foothill.
Heritage Christian 67, Oakwood 23: Tae Simmons made all 15 of his shots and finished with 30 points for 12-0 Heritage Christian.
Girls basketball
Sierra Canyon 75, Nevada Democracy Prep 47: The unbeaten Trailblazers (8-0) won their division of the Tarkanian Classic. Center Emilia Krstevski led the way with 23 points.
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