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During the offseason, that long, lifeless, soul-crushing offseason, ESPN ranked the players in the NBA from 1 to 500. The guy I recently described as being crucial to the Sixers chances this series was ranked #500.
Doing the math (15 players per team, 30 teams), ESPN was essentially saying Lavoy Allen shouldn't be in the league.
Now, to get this out of the way, they weren't alone. Here at Liberty Ballers, none of us were thrilled with the pick, including me. I knew he had talent, but me being upset at the pick was a combination of not believing he had mentality to take advantage of his talent (which Doug Collins himself questioned in the beginning of the season) and that I thought they could get Allen undrafted if they wanted him (which was still probably true).
That being said, Allen was far and away exceeded my expectations and using the pick on him and guaranteeing he would be on the Sixers roster has clearly been the right move.
We're not the only ones doing a mea culpa.
Henry Abbott caught up with Lavoy to to apologize for the ranking. And Lavoy handled it with the utmost class.
Allen: If I asked you who 482 was, do you know who that was?
ESPN: I have no idea.
Allen: But you know who number 500 was, though, right?
ESPN: I do. I do.
Allen: I should thank you guys.
Read the full transcript here. It's short, but good.
Kudos, Lavoy. Both for your performance that proved us wrong and your class in handling it.