Larry Jewell

Run a story on it. I've got the tape recorder going now. Yeah, that's fine, Larry. Coach, we've received word in the last week or two that the National Basketball association coaches have chosen Lionel Hollins as a member of the first team all rookie team in the NBA. You must be pleased to have one of your former ballplayers make that, have that honor. Well, I certainly am, Larry. I think that it, that it typifies not only his ability but his character. And he was in town several weeks ago and we had a good visit and he's very pleased with it. He's now set his sights on becoming one of the real fine ones in the NBA, and I think he will. A lot of the opposing coaches must think awfully highly of him because there are some on the second team that are making a name for themselves. Ricky Sobers, for example. Well, that's right. Of course, he's on television now and has been for the last couple weeks. But the Sobers kid is a good athlete and a lot of people around here watched him when he was at unlv. But Lionel apparently, although I didn't see him on television, I talked with Phil Johnson of Kansas City, Omaha, and he claims it's just a matter of time before he'll be one of the standouts in the NBA. He has good size for a pro card. Well, he sure has. He's, you know, he played here the other day for a while and he's a good. He's a good 64 now, just as strong as can be. In fact, they've told him that he'd have to come into camp next fall under 195 pounds because he got up to about 200 pounds and that there's not much on him but muscle. I'll tell you, looking as a coach now, seeing one of your former ball players develop what looks to be his strengths now in pro ball. Well, I think he's got awful good quickness out in the middle of the floor. I know that when I hear and read articles about him. Apparently he does a lot of defensive mechanics and gets the ball through the middle of the floor. And he's a very smart basketball player. Gets the ball to the open man. He indicated to me that this was his responsibilities, was to find the hot hand at Portland and get the ball to him, which he did, apparently. What about the weaknesses? What does he need to still work on? Well, I would think listening to him talk, I would think that he needs a little bit more consistency in his perimeter shooting. They feel like that he's not a consistent outside or what we call perimeter shooter. This seems hard for me to believe watching him through high school through high school college or junior college and at Arizona State but this seems to be right now the thing that he needs to work on. Coach has it helped him going into the pro game helped him with a head start after playing a Dixie College in Arizona State where you run more of a controlled fast break but like to move the ball quickly? Well I don't know I think that he certainly had ample opportunity to run it at both places and as many people remember when he was here it seemed like that he initiated our fast break offense and I've heard Ned Volks speak many times at Arizona State that he did basically the same thing there and I'm sure that pro basketball necessitates an awful lot of running and as you indicated Larry controlled running and he does this very well. Coach thank you. I appreciate the.