14 feet of long shot, great article in Bee

CruzDude

Senior Member sharing a brew with bajaden
#1
Learning about Anwar Ferguson and Adam Parada in the Bee article was great. Ferguson can block shots but can he rebound? Seems he doesn't shoot very well but has a good foul shot. Probably the longest shot to stick around.

Parada on the other hand seems to be a Brad Miller type when Brad got out of Purdue: undrafted and not given much of a chance. But Parada is a true back to the basket center with some nice offensive moves near the basket, decent body banger underneath, can block shots a bit, a little bit of everything. He will hang around for a bit into the season I think. As will my boy Daniels. :cool:
 

VF21

Super Moderator Emeritus
SME
#2
Here's the article CruzDude is talking about:

http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/story/11063766p-11980588c.html

14 feet of long shot

Two rookie centers have one goal: A Kings roster spot

By Joe Davidson -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PDT Tuesday, October 12, 2004

You can't teach tall, the saying goes. And you can't order 7-foot centers on eBay, either.


So the Kings went the conventional route, inviting two players seemingly as tall as the rafters into training camp to compete for a roster spot. Adam Parada and Anwar Ferguson realize they are long shots to make the team, but for them, what else is new? They have always been just off the basketball radar despite their height.

But with their size and their skills - and especially because there's a sudden shortage of Kings centers these days with Greg Ostertag out up to a month because of a broken hand - Parada and Ferguson have an opportunity every undrafted rookie free agent craves.


"I think we're both excited to be here," Ferguson said. "I know I am. My first day here, I was so hyped, so nervous, I called all my friends and told them to guess where I was."

Ferguson, a shot-blocking specialist, is athletic and rail-thin at 210 pounds. Parada, meanwhile, looks like an NBA center at 265 pounds, with size-20 feet that could stamp out a small grass fire.

Parada has more experience than Ferguson, having played four years at UC Irvine - the school's first 7-footer - and he showed promise on the Kings' summer-league team for which he averaged nine points and seven rebounds.

Ferguson didn't participate in a summer league.

Mild-mannered and subdued, Ferguson speaks with an accent from his roots on Exuma in the Bahamas, where his father commanded attention from his seven children and from his pulpit as a preacher with a boom-box voice. In high school, Ferguson's athletic specialty was high jumping, and he once cleared 6-11. Basketball was mostly an afterthought.

But after dabbling in a summer basketball tournament, word soon seeped stateside that there was a tall kid who looked a bit like Hakeem Olajuwon on defense. And how fitting: The first true center Ferguson worked against was Olajuwon, the former Houston Rockets great.

"He showed me a lot of moves, a lot of that shake and bake," Ferguson said, then laughed. "I couldn't handle him."

Ferguson played two years at Lee College, a community college in Baytown, Texas. He wasn't much of a scorer, but foes had a hard time scoring on him. He caught the eye of NBA Hall of Famer Clyde Drexler, then the University of Houston's coach, and Ferguson ranked among the national leaders in blocked shots during two seasons with the Cougars.

Still, Ferguson wasn't drafted. He accepted the Kings' camp invitation over one from the Los Angeles Lakers.

"Blocking shots, that's all the coaches have ever really asked me to do over the years," Ferguson said. "I'm still learning more about offense."

Kings assistant coach Pete Carril said Ferguson needs to improve his shooting stroke. He also said Ferguson has a nice free-throw form - "that foul shot is lovely" - but more time and strength is needed to improve his overall game.

Parada is being hotly pursued by professional teams abroad, where he could play right away, including in Mexico (he was on the Mexican national team for the 2001 Goodwill Games). Parada would prefer the NBA, and he appears to be a more viable backup option to Brad Miller should Ostertag's injury keep him out for a long stretch to open the regular season.

Despite setting shot-blocking and rebounding records at UC Irvine, Parada said he had a disappointing senior season with the Anteaters, thus his plummet from prospect to project. He also said he had a nasty bout of the flu, lost 30 pounds and lost steam altogether.

Parada can run the floor, hit free-throw-area jumpers and set screens - all ideal elements for a big man in the Kings' motion offense.

"I think I can fill Ostertag's shoes and help this team do some things," Parada said.

And if not for a sudden affection for basketball late in his prep career at Alta Loma High School, Parada said he very well might have pursued a different career. It wouldn't have been as an equestrian dentist, like his father, but probably as a firefighter.

However, as Parada grew, friends and prep coaches urged him to give basketball a chance. Parada was reluctant at first and nearly quit in the early going. He wore a size-18 shoe when he was 14, and running up and down the court was a chore.

"I felt too big," Parada said. "It was uncomfortable."

It took the wisdom and guidance of another giant, Mark Eaton, to help Parada become comfortable in his own skin. Eaton didn't like his frame, either, and didn't want anything to do with basketball until he met Tom Lubin.

Lubin, an assistant at Cypress College in the late 1970s, discovered the 7-5 Eaton working at a tire shop two blocks from the school. After months of recruiting by Lubin, Eaton enrolled and excelled at Cypress, then had a long career with the Utah Jazz as a record-setting shot-blocker.

Lubin introduced Parada - the two met at a high school basketball camp - to Eaton. When Parada asked if he knew of anyone who had size-20 shoes to spare, Eaton fetched several pairs from Ostertag, when the now-King played for the Jazz.

Last spring, following his UC Irvine career, Parada worked out twice daily with Eaton, and the lessons learned stuck.

"Mark was great for me, in so many ways," Parada said. "I was struggling with being so big when I was in high school, and he gave me the greatest line, the best advice I have ever received. He told me one day, 'You're going to have to live your life this big, this tall. If you let it bother you, you'll be miserable.' "

And once Parada started to understand the game, he started to enjoy it. He accepted the scholarship to UC Irvine because the coaches believed in him and because, well, he's a surfer and an angler, and the ocean was just 10 minutes away.

Fishing makes Parada popular company with Miller and Ostertag, the Kings' resident outdoorsmen. Miller said Parada has a good enough game to make it in the NBA and offers his own experiences as motivation.

Miller went from undrafted rookie free agent to wealthy All-Star center.

"If I could make it, anyone could make it," Miller said. "All you have to do is work hard."

The Bee's Joe Davidson can be reached at (916) 321-1280 or jdavidson@sacbee.com.