photo courtesy of Ronald Martinez/Getty Images
Before helping lead Memphis to the cusp of a NCAA National Championship, and before he blossomed into a facsimile of Ben Wallace in Karl Malone’s body, a slim, raw Joey Dorsey was catching wreck in B-more.
Check out my man Gerrard Shelley’s video montage of Joey puttin’ it in at Baltimore’s Douglass High School, where he helped lead the squad to the state chip in 2002. You can’t help but see how the playground aesthetic informed his game back then and the reasons why Calipari was salivating.
Dorsey rocks #15 for Douglass. He’s the supreme example of the C.B.A. Concept – Conceive, Believe, Achieve!!!
Coming out of B-more, he didn’t have the grades or work ethic, but he put in the work at prep school and Memphis that will pay some lovely, lovely dividends. He saw something he wanted, was determined to fulfill the promise, hit the books and the weights and now he’s boppin’ down the yellowbrick road.
http://www.digitalsports.com/article/type/organization/typeid/42/id/23818.aspx
Also in uniform for Douglass is #22 – Gerald Brown. Brown has quietly been one of the nation’s leading scorers the last two years at Loyola College, after transferring from Providence, who will definitely get some burn in somebody’s NBA training camp. If you peeped the action at the Barry Farms Goodman league this summer in D.C., then you know all about Gerald Brown, aka “P Shiddy”, and his prolific ability to get buckets.
Tyler Smith is #5. He’s one of Carmelo’s homeboys from the west side of town, who’s chilling under Melo’s wing in Colorado while finishing up at Colorado State. Tyler was the City Player of the Year that year.
April 11th, 2008 at 7:03 pm
Bobbito Garcia a.k.a. Kool Bob Love says:
i need to check barry farms for myself something awful, been dying for years and have heard so much. we should roll to the dome this summer, too. that’d be hot. keep putting b-more more on our map!
April 12th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
ali says:
oh, it’s a done deal bob. we’ll hit the dome, the goodman, and if time permits, check the runs at the melo center, where the likes of the melo man himself, sam cassell, juan dixon and rudy gay put it in with the college crew and the young boys making noise.
April 13th, 2008 at 10:36 am
Bobbito Garcia a.k.a. Kool Bob Love says:
yo–
is cassell from b-more? bro, i love his game! i never really knew about dude until he got in the pros and started jukin’ brothers, makin’ scoring look easy like eating a deli sandwich on the run. that’d be fresh, thanks for the invite!
April 13th, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Jeremy Ripley says:
Thanks for posting this up Ali…Video is great. Speaking of B’more, Carmelo and Beasley played at the same gym growing up or something like that?
April 13th, 2008 at 9:30 pm
ali says:
bob,
sam played at dunbar. he grew up paterning his game after skip wise. they were running together over the summers a few years back at a run at northwestern high school. sam also played with Karlton ‘Dunkin’ Hines at Maine Central after he finished up in b-more. that backcourt at florida state w/ him and charlie ward was kinda ill. i’ve been a sam cassell fan for a minute he’ll be great mentor to teach rondo the tricks of the trade.
hey jeremy, kevin durant and beasely grew up playing together at the same rec center in seat pleasant, maryland, which is right outside of DC. can you imagine?
and melo is originally from brooklyn. he moved to b-more before high school. same w/ rasheed wallace. also grew up in ny, then moved to philly.
April 14th, 2008 at 12:55 am
Jesse Washington says:
BROOKLYN!!
i had to say that. oh, and those dorsey highlights were ill.