Matt Barnes put on the jets in the playoffs at Kezar Pavillion
An Olympic summer just wrapped, but this particular Dream Team certainly wasn’t fighting for gold medals. It’s the end of summer and the last teams still standing were definitely getting their skills playground tested. A battle certainly ensued in this year’s San Francisco Pro-Am Basketball League that wrapped in August. Dream Team took the edge in Game 1 with a 82-80 win before strong-arming the game away from East Bay in a thrilling 97-94 overtime win in Game 2 of the best-of-three title series. They defeated a squad that was anchored by the buckets of former USF standout and present D-Leaguer Jovan Harris, who was this year’s Pro-Am MVP. Still, Dream Team was stacked with crowd favorite Golden State Warriors Matt Barnes (now signed with Phoenix Suns) and the force known as forward Eric Crookshank, who did a stint in 2007 as And1’s “Air Canada” and will play overseas this season.
East Bay automatically made it to the finals after finishing atop the league standings with a 6-1 regular season record. And with a less impressive 4-3 finish, Dream Team was able to really get their momentum rolling for the finals by defeating both Bay Pride and SF City just to live to see another day in the playoffs. Crookshank averaged a double-double throughout Dream Team’s regular season run and into the playoffs shot nearly 50% from the field. Numbers don’t lie. Money has the look and hopefully will have a good run this season playing overseas with Finland’s Componeta. He finished with with 26 points, while Barnes was killing them softly with lightning-quick layups. His long-range was deadly too, including one from downtown deep in the overtime frame to wrangle the ‘chip away from the East Bay. Monta Ellis was supposed to run with Dream Team but people can think of 66,000,000 million reasons he was a no-show. Meanwhile, Matt was out there acting like the Larry O’Brien trophy was on the line. Gotta love it. Hopefully, the Suns will respect his hustle more than the Warriors did last year.
(Dream Team’s finest…And don’t you just love the yellow & black Nike Dunks on dude in the middle? Don’t trip, we all have a pair of lucky kicks!)
August 27th, 2008 at 1:47 pm
Surujh says:
Crookshank is for real…my ABA team played against him in Halifax, (last game of our season/franchise actually) and he is a beast. Lightning quick on the hop and a brute force. Not polished enough for high level foreign leagues but has an engine that goes 110% all the time.
August 27th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Bobbito Garcia a.k.a. Kool Bob Love says:
wow . . . did money play in the dunks? they were once a performance shoe, but the way they’ve re-released them was definitely as a casual lifestyle shoe. they don’t even match his uni! did he play at iowa or something?
August 28th, 2008 at 1:32 am
'Risse aka Town Biz says:
Yes, Kool B, to answer your question. Money did, in fact, play in the Dunks! And on the really, that is how I kept up with him in the transition, yo!
I aint gonna lie, I played in a pair of orange and white ones (a.k.a. my “Tennessee Oranges”) [shouts to P. Summit!] @’55th once back in my days! they didn’t match my baby blue Lady Mustangs uni–though didn’t clash as bad as homeboys did either. But, again on the really, sometimes it ain’t about the looks yo!! when you do something that bold, you really making a statement to the crowd that you ’bout to get busy! And when he was @ PG, he was pushing the rock…so the verdict is:
Ole Lucky kicks bring home ‘chips!!
August 28th, 2008 at 1:46 pm
Sean Couch says:
Great Post –
Best Line: “Matt was acting like the Larry O’Brien trophy was on the line.”
Summer ball at its finest.
August 29th, 2008 at 10:22 am
sureone says:
They had a Pro-Am tournament in E.Orange NJ. Crazy (M.”Problem Child”Creedle,E.Ingraham,Shell a bunch of D-1 and overseas cats-Keon Lawrence(Seton Hall) and Corey Chandler(Rutgers). The chip went to a team called the Hawks(sponsored by Stephen A. Smith from Quite Frankly) He showed up and coached a game which I thought was neat(My favorite analyst.) Jersey cats got seeeious(pronounce) game.
The final game was crazy the Hawks had Flex Foyle, Showtime Hill, & Antifreeze. Flex had 41, 30 and Freeze was snoring and had 20+. The other team had K. Lawrence(potential is scary) who had 45 and Corey Chandler(30pts). Wish you guys could have been there. This was truly a great summer of basketball. Keep up the good work and coverage.
P.S. Matt barnes is a tough cover a la T2(NBA) who might have been the best I’ve seen all summer. He committed to St. John’s (D.Miles,L.Cooke,M.Glover,C.Fisher,Q.Dobie) The program would where it’s supposed to be.