{"id":762016,"date":"2026-06-26T17:41:13","date_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:41:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/762016\/"},"modified":"2026-06-26T17:41:13","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T17:41:13","slug":"skip-bayless-misses-again-this-time-on-cam-boozer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/762016\/","title":{"rendered":"Skip Bayless Misses Again, This Time On Cam Boozer"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _174s0un6 _174s0un5 _1mt21p01\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.yardbarker.com\/nba\/articles\/not_that_explosively_athletic_skip_bayless_doubts_cameron_boozers_talent_after_2026_nba_draft_pick\/s1_17776_43995756\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">W<\/a>hen Larry Bird entered the NBA, he had plenty of doubters. He didn\u2019t pass the eye test: he was slow, couldn\u2019t jump, and was ghostly white.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Boston Globe columnist Bob Ryan figured it out quickly. Writing in Basketball Weekly, early in Bird\u2019s rookie season, he explained what people didn\u2019t get about Bird.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">To be clear, Cameron Boozer is not Larry Bird, but like a lot of guys who are perceived as slow and not as athletic as they might be, he\u2019s getting that particular tag.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Skip Bayless, not always the sharpest knife in the drawer, is beating that drum, tweeting this out on X: \u201cLove his dad but don\u2019t love-love Cameron Boozer in the NBA. Just not that explosively athletic. But he is a very good, extremely well-taught basketball player who will give you all he has every night and provide solid leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">First, good to know he loves Carlos, but maybe he forgot that the elder Boozer had a similar rap coming out of college and was actually a second-round pick, going to Cleveland with the 35th pick.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">At the time, people questioned his athleticism, his lack of verticality, and worried that he was a \u2018tweener, too small for center and not quick enough for power forward. They worried about his shot, too, and questioned his foot speed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Any of this ringing a bell?<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Well, things worked out okay for Carlos, and Cameron enters the league as a vastly more skilled young player than was his father.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Whatever you can say about Cameron, his fundamentals, his grasp of the game, and his sheer intelligence have been major factors in his success.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1upudxki _174s0un1 _174s0un0 _1mt21p01\">Red Auerbach, patriarch of the Boston Celtics, liked to simplify the game. About Boozer, he might have said, look, he can shoot, he can rebound, he can pass, he plays defense, and he doesn\u2019t screw up very often. What\u2019s not to like?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Larry Bird entered the NBA, he had plenty of doubters. He didn\u2019t pass the eye test: he&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":762017,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[90025,64,63,726,7432,85],"class_list":["post-762016","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-alumni","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-main","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762016","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=762016"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/762016\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/762017"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=762016"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=762016"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=762016"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}