When Regina Glenn-Speights and her daughter Willena were kneeling in the middle of their living room on June 26, they were relieved when Marreese went so high in the NBA Draft.
Marreese Speights was plucked at No. 16 by the Philadelphia 76ers, a more than respectable spot for an athlete that has played just five years of basketball and just one season of significant minutes at UF.
But what they really should be thankful for is not how high he went, but where he went. To all the NBA Draft experts who have praised Speights potential - I'm skeptical. Very skeptical. What I saw last year with his conditioning and intangibles didn't equate into a successful NBA player.
But if he's successful anywhere, it'll be in Philadelphia. Coach Maurice Cheeks (we should've seen that coming with the name, anyway) just took a team that had lottery talent to six games in a first-round series with the Detroit Pistons, the most dominant Eastern Conference team the past couple years. Cheeks is a friendly players coach, and won't sit there yelling at UF's former big man, making the 6-foot-10 man feel like a 5-foot-4 towel boy.
Philadelphia also is thin on the front line. They've got Samuel Dalembert and Thaddeus Young as their power forward and center now, and Young is more of a small forward that can just play the four spot due to his athleticism. Besides that there's Jason Smith and Shavlik Randolph, who has proven there's a reason why he didn't play much at Duke.
He also has a good point guard in Andre Miller who knows how to get big men the ball, and Andre Iguodala is an excellent perimeter defender who won't let players drive past him easily right toward Speights.
Marreese is actually going to have to learn to play defense, and he probably won't play much if he doesn't, but at least he has people around him that can play defense. And, sometimes, that's half the problem right there.
Philadelphia also has quite a bit of money to spend in free agency and so far doesn't appear to be targeting many big men that would eat at Speights playing time. One of them is defensive specialist Josh Smith, which could make Speights life in the paint even easier.
ESPN analyst Jay Bilas called Speights "a really good pick in the middle of the first round," and he's probably right. You can't doubt his offensive array of skills, and if he gets a good NBA strength and conditioning coach, he might actually learn how to use that 6-10, 250-pound frame the way an NBA big man should.
I don't see Speights being an All-Star - ever. But the 76ers offer him as good of a chance as he could hope for to be the best he can be. Maybe a starter. Maybe a substitute off the bench. But, when we had our alligatorSports poll before Summer B started and almost half of our votes said Speights would be out of the league in five years (you guys are harsh, by the way). Being a role player certainly beats being out of a job.
