Orangeyes
R.I.P Dan
- Joined
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Who is CNY’s greatest
basketball
player
ever?
Andray Blatche is the greatest basketball player to ever come out of the city of Syracuse.
Don’t believe it?
The Brooklyn Nets center/power forward, who played for Henninger High School, is in his ninth season in the NBA after entering the league at the age of 19. His best competition is probably Jimmy Collins, a Corcoran graduate who played sparingly for the Chicago Bulls in two seasons in the early 1970s.
Not even close.
But what about expanding the circle to all of CNY?
OK, now there’s competition. Minoa’s Larry Costello was a six-time NBA all-star, so he wins. Danny Schayes, who played for Jamesville-DeWitt, had an 18-year NBA career. So he’s a big part of the conversation. (Danny’s father, Dolph, is in the hall of fame — but he is from New York City.) Another J-D grad, Andy Rautins, had only a brief stay in the league.
So here’s a quick look at the big three — Costello, Schayes and Blatche:
LARRY COSTELLO
Costello, who died in 2001, was a hard-nosed, 6-foot-1 point guard in the 1950s and ’60s. He was selected No. 12 by Philadelphia in the 1954 NBA Draft after playing his college ball at Niagara. He won an NBA title with Philadelphia in 1967 and led the NBA in free-throw percentage for two seasons. He was with the Syracuse Nationals from 1957 to 1965. Costello went on to coach the Milwaukee Bucks to an NBA title in 1971 (with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Oscar Roberton and Bobby Dandridge) and later coached the Chicago Bulls.
Schayes, 55, played behind Louis Orr and Roosevelt Bouie before coming into his own as a senior at Syracuse University. He led the Orange in scoring and rebounding in 1980-81 and had a Carrier Dome record 23 rebounds in a win over Georgetown. The Utah Jazz selected Schayes with the 13th pick of the 1981 draft. Schayes was 6-foot-
11, solid fundamentally, a good passer and an excellent interior defender. And who doesn’t need that? Seven teams over his
18-year career decided they did.
ANDRAY BLATCHE
At the age of 27, he has a long way to go before his career is fully defined. Blatche played for Henninger High and South Kent School in Connecticut before being selected 49th by Washington in the 2005 draft. He played seven years for the Wizards, then was traded to Brooklyn. Blatche is offensively aggressive and a matchup nightmare at 6-foot-11 and 260 pounds. He’s versatile and creative enough to shoot from the perimenter and take defenders off the dribble. He has averaged 11.2 points and 5.3 rebounds for the Nets this season.
Was in today's PS could not find a link
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. We played against Jim Lee (Windsor, NY) in HS, where he was almost unstoppable. I also thought of Bob Lanier and Calvin Murphy, but both were from the Buffalo area, so I guess they don't qualify even though we were all fiercely proud of them for being from "upstate" (as in, not NYC).
), but Jimmy Collins from Corcoran had a great career at New Mexico State, leading his 1970 team to 27-3 and the Final Four that same year.
