| 22 November 2011
I'm sitting here on this Virgin America flight from JFK to LAX having just purchased $13.00 internet fee and a $9.00 "Holiday Turkey" sandwich which was actually pretty good. I could be doing a lot of things during this five-hour flight back to my hometown, but I have chosen to write about basketball.
First off, the Johnson family sends our condolences to the family of Walt Hazzard. We were all rocked by the news that the UCLA legend Walt had passed away from health complications. Coach Hazzard was the captain on John Wooden's first championship team at UCLA, a mentor to many of us in the Bruin basketball family and one of the best people I've been around.
I last saw Coach Hazzard at the Anaheim Convention Center in March while covering the Southern California High-School Championships. Coach was there with his wife and son, Jala, watching his grandson Max play for Loyola High-School. I went over to pay my respects and Coach Hazzard -- as always when we saw each other -- flashed that radiant smile and shook my hand. Coach had been suffering from side effects of a stroke, but was as alert and on point as ever. His son Rasheed, who won a championship with Lakers in 2009 as an advanced scout, is a childhood friend of mine -- a fabulous coach, a basketball savant, a classy, elegant gentleman and man.
The apple obviously does not fall far from the tree.
UCLA basketball is in a state of utter confusion right now and I haven't the slightest clue why. Fans are popping champagne and celebrating Monday night's win over Chaminade University at the Maui Invitational like it's 1995 and the Bruins just beat President Clinton's Hogs.
It's Chaminade Bruin Nation, relax.
I I spent all summer in the men's gym on campus, watching, evaluating and enjoying the progress made by each and every single player returning on that roster.
Reeves Nelson was a beast all summer, displaying leadership qualities and a maturity that I was quite pleased to see. Lazeric Jones, the Chicago kid, was the hardest working Bruin this summer and basically lived in the gym. Norman Powell, D'End Parker and the Wear twins, David and Travis, were the same way. Tyler Lamb, Brendan Lane and Joshua Smith worked on their games this summer as well, as did Larry Drew.
Nelson was featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated and the Bruins, yet again, were ranked amongst the Top 20 teams in the nation.
So when the Bruins suffered two humiliating, embarrassing and downright awful defeats to open the season against LMU and Middle Tennessee State, needless to say I was shocked.
Listless and devoid of energy, effort or passion, I haven't seen a UCLA team start the season this bad since my UCLA squad lost to Santa Clara, Wisconsin and Vanderbilt in the Maui Invitational 15 years ago.
(That was before the iPhone and iPad even existed! Now I really feel old, but I digress. )
And this wasn't your dad's LMU Lions, the up-and-down, run-and-gun outfit led by Bo Kimble and Hank Gathers, a team that was ranked and came within a game of the Final Four in 1990. This was an inferior team, with marginal post players and some fearless guards that gave the Bruins fits all night. Sure it happens at this time of the year: Arizona lost to Seattle Pacific. But it was the way the Bruins lost that was so troubling. Then Middle Tennessee State (not to be confused with East Tennessee State) came in and smacked UCLA by 20 points, which I will not waste any more energy lamenting that loss.
Word around the program was there was some intrasquad turmoil taking place, and soon thereafter Coach Ben Howland announced that Reeves Nelson would be disciplined for conduct detrimental to the team.
Apparently a string of ongoing issues with Nelson, the coaching staff and players had pushed things to the brink of disaster, before an 11th hour intervention by some notables persuaded Nelson to get his act together. Make no mistake about it: this is not about Ben Howland or his lack of control over the UCLA program. I shutter at the very assumption. This is about a driven, competitive player that sometimes let his emotions get the best of him. I cannot and will not knock Reeves for his competitive fire, or his emotional style. I was the same way as a player and on more than one occasion had to pay dear consequences for it.
This is the place I am coming from when I see a skilled, 6'8 talent like Reeves Nelson tripping out there -- "Son get it together, before you screw up your money".
I have been where Reeves is, and I don't want to see him go down the path of self-destruction. It only earns you a bad rap on the next level.
NBA teams, like most major corporations, are more inclined to invest their money in players or employees they can count on for emotional stability, people that know when and where to let out that competitive fire and how to pick their spots. I won't go into great detail about Nelson's transgressions over the years, but let's just say he needs to pick his spots better.
Missing the team bus and flight to Maui is not acceptable and Reeves paid the price by sitting out the first half of the Chaminade game. But if he continues to pull these shenanigans, Coach Howland will be forced to make a very tough decision for the greater good of his team -- and the UCLA basketball program.
Kris Johnson played forward for UCLA from 1994-1998 and was a freshman on the 1995 National Championship team, before playing professional basketball internationally for 7 seasons in Russia, Turkey, France, Lebanon, Qatar and China. After retiring from basketball, Kris served as radio host at Premiere Radio Networks and a field reporter and studio analyst for FoxSports.com. Today, he works as a consultant in developing the first iPad-based sports scouting/evaluation solutiondesigned for basketball coaches, scouts and talent evaluators. You can follow him on Twitter @PointForwardPro. Kris' column, "Confessions of a Basketball Vagabond" is featured often at Beyond the Beat.
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