I’ll let this go soon, I promise.
But I started playing around with the City League boys top 50 list I produced on the blog last week (remember, just one man’s opinion) and decided to have just a little more fun.
So I broke down the top 20 into two teams. The first team is made up of the top five (Ricky Ross, Darnell Valentine, Perry Ellis, Antoine Carr and Greg Dreiling) along with the reserves from the Nos. 16-20 slots: Val Barnes, Mike Hollimon, Steve Woodberry, Johnny Murdock and Riney Lochmann.
The second team includes the players I ranked from 6-10: Aubrey Sherrod, Conner Frankamp, Adrian Griffin, Taj Gray and Randy Canfield. Joining them are the five players who ranked from 11-15 on my list: Korleone Young, Jamie Thompson, Warren Hollins, Kelly Pete and Gaylor Nickerson.
You see where I’m going with this?
How would Team 1 do against Team 2 in a 10-game series?
Clearly, only my imagination can make this work. But it’s interesting how it sorted out. Team 1′s starters include a center (Dreiling), a power forward (Carr or Ellis), a small forward (Carr or Ellis), a shooting guard (Ross) and a point guard (Valentine).
Team 2′s starters match up perfectly, at least position-wise. There’s a center (Canfield), a power forward (Gray), a small forward (Griffin), a shooting guard (Sherrod) and a point guard (Frankamp).
I would give a slight edge to Team 2′s bench, but Team 1 looks to have a better starting five. Yeah, well, there are four McDonald’s All-Americans in that starting group and another player, Valentine, who would have been had he not graduated in 1977, a year before the first McDonald’s All-America team was chosen.
Valentine vs. Frankamp might be the most intriguing player match-up in my fictitious game. Valentine was able to overpower opponents defensively during his career at Heights. He was a stronger player than Frankamp, but Valentine didn’t become as dominant a player until his senior season.
Remember, Frankamp is only a junior. And he’s already a better offensive player than Valentine, who was not a great shooter at Heights but was able to score a lot because of his great defense and ability to turn steals and other turnovers into lay-ups. Understanding that Frankamp is a work in progress, I’ll give an edge in this matchup to Valentine.
The Ross-Sherrod battle at shooting guard is epic. These are two of the finest scorers in City League history. Ross was a better ball-handler and defender, but Sherrod could fill it up. We actually saw this match-up for a season in the City League, when Ross was a senior in 1978-79 and Sherrod was a sophomore. But the two years difference made it an unfair fight. Give Ross an edge in my fantasy game.
The small forwards would be Ellis vs. Griffin. That’s another intriguing battle. Ellis is the better athlete but Griffin had some of the best instincts ever for a City League basketball player. He knew how to position his body as a rebounder and as a scorer. Ellis, meanwhile, is really taking off as a player this season. I saw him Friday night against Northwest and it wasn’t close. Ellis is becoming a man right before our eyes and it’s going to be difficult to keep him – and Heights – from winning a fourth consecutive Class 6A state championship. Edge to Ellis, but not a big one.
At power forward, Carr goes against Gray. This is another interesting match-up, but Carr gets the edge, even though he wasn’t a true power forward at Heights. He liked to roam the floor and for good reason. His athletic ability allowed him to play as well from the perimeter as he did from the paint. Gray, too, could roam, and he was a better rebounder than Carr in high school. Overall, though, Carr gets the nod here. Easily.
Now for the big guys, Dreiling and Canfield. The 7-foot-1 Dreiling has a four-inch edge over Canfield, a standout at Southeast during the late 1960s and one of the first of his kind in City League history. Dreiling and Canfield had similar skills, but Dreiling had a bigger helping. So he gets the edge, giving Team 1 a sweep. Makes sense, since I picked the Team 1 guys as the five best City Leaguer’s I’ve seen.
Does Team 2′s bench make enough of a difference to even up these games? Maybe. I really like that Team 2 bench.
But if through some time machine miracle we were able to see 10 games between these teams, I think Team 1 would win eight. Maybe nine. They would be entertaining, though.