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They used to get pickup games like these a couple of years ago, Terry Nooner said, but the location varied and there were no spectators then. The basketball was always good, though.
“It was like a who’s who of basketball in the city,” Nooner said. “So me and Tyronn (Lue) were talking, ‘Man, we need to have a league.’”
They built it, and the people are, indeed, coming. At least on Friday.
The second season of the Kansas City Pro-Am Basketball League — a collection of mostly former and current college players — tipped off Friday night at Penn Valley Community College. And by the start of the second game of the doubleheader — the main event, so to speak — the 11 rows of bleachers were mostly full of fans, while others filed in along the baselines on either side.
They came to watch the who’s who of basketball talent.
Lue, the former Raytown High School standout and well-traveled NBA point guard, played on a team, appropriately named Team Lue, headlined by Detroit Pistons star point guard Chauncey Billups.
Former Bishop Miege star and KU newcomer Travis Releford, former Rockhurst player and second-year Kansas walk-on Connor Teahan, and former UMKC standout Michael Watson also played on the team.
On the other side of the court, The Hawks, put together by former KU player Nick Bradford, featured the Utah Jazz’s Ronnie Brewer and KU’s Cole Aldrich, Tyrel Reed and newcomers Tyshawn Taylor and Mario Little.
Lue started the league last summer with a group that includes friend and former Raytown High teammate Nooner, who serves as the league president.
With 12 teams and games four nights a week at Penn Valley, the goal, they say, is to give Kansas City-area players an opportunity for high-level summer competition while raising money for the Boys & Girls Club.
To get things started, though, Lue called in some special guests.
He and Billups became friends when they met at an AAU tournament in California while in high school. Lue and Billups, from Denver, exchanged numbers and have been close ever since.
They talk a few times a week during the NBA season, and when Lue called to see whether Billups would help get the league’s season started this summer, Billups answered.
“I told him I’m going to support anything he does. We have that kind of friendship,” Billups said. “Anytime you’re trying to do something good, you know, I’m going to be a part of it — help as best I can.”
Billups, who injured his hamstring in this season’s NBA playoffs, managed only 12 points in the exhibition. Lue, who said before the game he was going to take it easy to prevent injury while he’s still an NBA free agent, finished with eight points.
Not that they weren’t taking it at least somewhat seriously.
“Hey man, give us a point!” Lue chirped from his seat on the sideline in the first quarter, after the scorekeeper failed to register a Team Lue basket.
Later, after a foul was called on the team, Lue asked the scorer’s table how many fouls that made. To which the public-address announcer assured him, “Hey, Chauncey ain’t fouling out.”
Nobody would foul out, but the game was effectively over early in the second half. As the Hawks went ahead 93-67, all Lue had left to say was, “Continuous clock. Continuous clock.”
The game would be over soon enough as the Hawks won 116-80, led by 20 points from Bradford. Aldrich and Brewer had 18.
Brewer had come at the request of Bradford, who is from Brewer’s hometown of Fayetteville, Ark. He drove more than 200 miles to participate.
Lue is hoping that ultimately some other NBA peers will eventually make the trek to Kansas City to represent the league.
“It would be nice if Earl (Watson) could come back and play sometimes, and Kareem Rush and those guys. But if they don’t, that’s fine,” Lue said. “I’m just trying to do something positive, have a chance for the young kids to come (watch) and do something instead of being on the streets, hanging out.”
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