I just had the pleasure to sit in on a lecture, followed up by a question and answer session, with probably the NBA's most famous scout ever, Marty Blake. As you can tell from the picture on the right, Marty has been around for a while, as he is currently in his mid 80's.
In my mind, if I'm listening to an opinion on the NBA draft, I'm going with the guy who drafted Pete Maravich and discovered Scottie Pippen.
I spoke with Marty after the session about a few things, one of the topics of course being the future of our departed SU friends.
In Marty's paraphrased words, here's what he had to say about Jonny:
"He will eventually be a very good player in the NBA. Not so much right now, but he should come out. He can play."
What about America's favorite bad guy, Eric Devendorf?
"Who's the other guy there, the guard? Yeah, Devendorf. He can play too."
Now, Marty didn't specify the actual league Devo could play in, but it sounds to me that he thinks he's somewhat on the right track. We unfortunately did not get to discuss Paul, who at this point could be hiding out in a closet on the Maid of the Mist for all we know.
Regardless, it was a great chance to talk to one of the true legends of the NBA. Marty even inadvertently made a reference to a longtime joke that my Dad loves to pull, which is refer to Jimmy B as "Bo-heem."
Just a spectacular night all around.
Let's hope "The Godfather of the NBA Draft"
is spot on about Jonny and devo, eh?
