Dazzling dribbling of Lee’s Summit’s Blake Spellman inspired by Pistol Pete Maravich

On many nights in a quiet Lee’s Summit neighborhood, maybe seven or eight years ago, Blake Spellman would retrieve a round leather ball from his garage and walk through the front door of his house.

He had memorized scenes from “The Pistol,” a movie depicting the ball-handling wizardry of former NBA point guard Pete Maravich. So for a few hours, Spellman circled a pond in the subdivision, smacking the basketball against the pavement, imitating Pistol Pete.

The solo sessions lasted until the sky darkened, after Spellman had alternated between all of Maravich’s drills. Between the legs. Behind the back. Fakes. Crossovers. Heck, Spellman even spent weeks learning to spin the ball on his finger identical to the way Maravich had done it in the movie.

“I started playing basketball when I was like 8, and it was rough. I couldn’t even dribble,” Spellman said. “I was getting ripped all the time.

“I had to do something.”

More than anything, the dedication was a way to evade embarrassment on the basketball court. He could have simply quit, of course. He could have reverted to baseball and football, the sports he began playing at an earlier age.

But there was that Pistol Pete DVD. He couldn’t put it away. He watched it nearly a dozen times, in all.

So instead of quitting, Spellman hired a coach and spent countless hours in the gym. Dribbling basketballs. Working to perfect that crossover. Over and over again.

Until it clicked.

Boy, did it click.

It’s nearly a decade later, and Spellman is the steady rock behind the undefeated Lee’s Summit High School basketball team. He’s the pace-setter on a freakishly fast-paced offense that scored 98 points in a conference game on Tuesday.

He toys with the basketball like a yo-yo. He outsprints defenders as the ball bounces beside his feet on the hardwood. He produces moments that make his favorite childhood movie spring to life.

“I’ve been very fortunate in that in the 14 years I’ve been an assistant or head coach, I’ve had four Division I point guards — Mike Dixon, Todd Fletcher, Shaq Harrison and now Blake Spellman,” Lee’s Summit coach Blake Little said. “Blake is the best ball handler I’ve ever coached. He works on it every single day. He’s always trying new stuff.

“He’s as good as I’ve ever seen.”

The simple admiration of his dribbling would be selling him short.

He can score, too. Spellman, who has signed with Northern Kentucky, poured in 40 points in the 98-94 comeback victory against Blue Springs on Tuesday, pushing Lee’s Summit’s record to 16-0. He is averaging 18.5 points, 4.1 assists, 3.0 rebounds and 2.2 steals per game in his senior season.

Lee’s Summit is The Star’s top-ranked big-class team. And perhaps its most exciting one.

Why? A frantic tempo controlled by the skinny, 6-foot-nothing point guard who plays with an edge on the court.

“I’ve always been littler than people, and they look at me like, ‘Who’s this little kid?’” Spellman said. “As a little guard, you have to have that swagger. You can’t let anyone walk over you.”

The handles are the ultimate silencer. He possesses an array of moves, perhaps none of them more effective than one he dubs the “in-out cross.”

The action starts with a fake crossover using only one hand. Once the defender bites — and it’s uncanny how often he does — Spellman hits him with the actual crossover.

It’s an ankle-twisting motion, one of many his ballooning arsenal that fit such a description. The first time he met his future high school coach, he busted another one out.

The setting? A seventh-grade basketball camp.

“He made a move that I just hadn’t seen a seventh-grader do,” Little said. “There was a kid who played at (Columbia) Rock Bridge named Travis Jorgenson, and he would do this between-the-legs, pullback jump shot. I had never seen a seventh-grader do it — until Blake walked in. I looked at another coach and said, ‘Whoa. This kid’s gonna be good.’

“I wasn’t wrong.”

This story was originally published January 28, 2016 at 7:55 PM with the headline "Dazzling dribbling of Lee’s Summit’s Blake Spellman inspired by Pistol Pete Maravich."