Former Seton Hall university forward Marcus Toney-El drops by episode #60 of Scoop B Radio with Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson. Photo Courtesy of: NJ.com

Marcus Toney-El ran Essex County, New Jersey in high school and college. A native of East Orange, New Jersey, Toney-El joins a list of other movers and shakers from Ill-Town to make a difference like Queen Latifah, Treach and Vin Rock from Naughty By Nature, actor John Amos, retired NBA player, Brevin Knight and Cleveland Browns all-purpose athlete Jabrill Peppers.

I first met Marcus Toney-El during my one-year stint as a columnist at Seton Hall Prep High School at their Pirate newspaper (I’d later transfer to Don Bosco Prep). I was a freshman, he was a senior. I was new to the school and adjusting to high school life and here was this larger than life figure floating the halls at The Prep.

What drew me to Toney-El was his magnetic personality. Everybody wanted to be around this tall 6-8 kid that reminded me of Tracy McGrady.

Check Out Marcus Toney-El and Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson On Scoop B Radio

Eventually we’d speak and created a player-writer bond.

I’ll never forget that bond because he was the first story that I wrote about in my column at the Seton Hall Pirate newspaper called, Scoop B’s NBA Beat.What was cool for me personally is that at the time, no freshman ever came into that school with their own column in their freshman year and what was even cooler is that Toney-El would create history in his senior year when he committed to Seton Hall University and was the guy that other top recruits to join him. That class would include, the late Eddie Griffin, a forward out of Roman Catholic High School in Philadelphia and Andre Barrett a speedy guard from New York City’ s Rice High School. They’d join center, Samuel Dalembert and Ty Shine and were coached by current Harvard head coach Tommy Amaker.

Those guys were a good squad, their skill set was awesome to see, professionally, I believe that they were still maturing yet were ahead of their time as their height, depth and skill-set represent what is today’s AAU, college and NBA mandates: small ball!

They were special! 

To me, locally they were to New Jersey what Jalen Rose, Chris Webber and Juwan Howard were to the University of Michigan and the Fab 5.  “Yeah I have heard that,” Marcus Toney-El told me on episode 60 of Scoop B Radio.

“Obviously what we accomplished in that first year with what those guys did. But as far as putting that together, what is now called a ‘super team,’ the Wolverines, I think we were the next ones to do it and what is now the modern era of basketball. At a time where the sneaker companies really started to come in and started taking over and running the AAU circuit and putting people in places in college we was like right on the cusp of that.” 

Eddie Griffin would declare for the NBA Draft, Tommy Amaker would leave. Shoulda, coulda, woulda easily creeps in. How successful would Seton Hall men’s basketball have been? “I think about it often, Marcus Toney-El told me on Scoop B Radio. 

“Every time I take a trip down to memory lane. If TA [Tommy Amaker] doesn’t leave my freshman year and Eddie Griffin doesn’t leave, Sam Dalembert doesn’t leave and though we had some problems within our teams function at that time and Louis Orr was the new coach, we would have had the same team back next year. This was a team that preseason was ranked ninth in the country, the same team that should have beaten Illinois at Illinois after being up 20. This is the same team that even though we wound up having a mediocre record we still would make people nervous in the Big East Tournament. It provided at least a silver lining for the future but once TA left, Eddie left, Sam left Coach Orr came in and then we had to start all over again. Once we started over, it took a while for us to get back on track.” 

We even talked about Eddie Griffin. Having played for Tim Thomas’ Playaz AAU team together, Toney-El and Griffin were besties. That relationship carried over to college. Skill-wise, Griffin was a monster. Griffin, the seventh pick in the 2001 NBA Draft was a Rasheed Wallace clone, I swear! 

“Rasheed Wallace is Eddie’s favorite player,” Toney-El said. 

Eddie Griffin At Philly’s Roman Catholic High School

In college, I was an avid NBA Live player. I’d picked the Houston Rockets often on NBA Live 2004 and would start Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley Yao Ming and Eddie Griffin, when going head to head with my roommate and other classmates.

What fascinated me was how much of a double team that Griffin commanded. Griffin was so potent he could take his defender off the dribble, post up his defender, get closer to the basket and take the jumper, shoot the three or pass the ball. He had too many options available, it was scary!

I’d often find Steve Francis open in the corner for a nifty three pointer or I’d feed the ball to Yao Ming in the post for an easy jam.

But I digress.

Griffin’s start in the NBA was rough. He had a series of suspensions, court dates and missed practices during his first two years in the NBA with Houston and the New Jersey Nets. He’d also spent time in the Betty Ford Center for alcohol treatment in 2003-04.

Griffin died in a fatal car crash in 2007. His SUV collided with a freight train in a fiery crash. The crash was so bad, the only way that authorities could identify him was by dental records.

What was frustrating about Griffin was that he was so talented, but his body, his age and his maturity hadn’t caught up with him just yet. Griffin was a fantasy basketball player’s dream and an opposing coaches nightmare. Any basketball purist was praying for the day, that those stars aligned, because homeboy was a special player!

I’d often wonder if Eddie Griffin knew how talented he really was.“Eddie knew,” said Toney-El. 

“Eddie knew that he was talented. Eddie could do what he wanted to do. He was a triple double in high school, he was double-double in college, but the one thing he also knew was he probably shouldn’t have gone to the NBA after his freshman year because of everything that comes with it. He would call back home and say: ‘I wish I stayed in college.’ Not because of his talents, but because of everything that comes with it.” 

Biggest misconception that people had of Griffin?” [That] Eddie was crazy,” said Toney-El.

“Now I can tell a kid who doesn’t like the way I run things or isn’t playing the way he wants to play:  ‘I was you, I was in your shoes. I understand that feeling but this is what you gotta do so that you don’t have that feeling, so that you can learn.’  More than just basketball its more of a life lesson I got from Coach Orr. Honestly he has even brought me closer to God. Like I shared that with him and I thanked him before, because I didn’t grow up in a household that went to church and prayed everyday, was holier than thou, I didn’t have that.”

 “They want to punch your name in Google and see if your background checks out. Once it checks out they want your ear. So it makes my job easier when they know who they are dealing with. It makes the parents a little easier, but it is always a battle, it always is going to be athlete and parents alike that you aren’t going to be able to get through to which is fine its the nature of the business. But we know the system isn’t perfect nothing is perfect but I do it because I love it.”

The post Scoop B: Former Seton Hall Prep & Seton Hall University forward Marcus Toney-El Talks Tommy Amaker, Eddie Griffin & Coaching appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

Cedric Henderson, Brevin Knight, Derek Anderson and Zydrunas Ilgauskas. Photo Credit: Getty Images

Way before LeBron James, Kyrie Irving and Kevin Love, there was a Cleveland Cavaliers team that finished 47-35 in the 1997-98 season. Coached by ‘The Czar,’ Mike Fratello, that Cavs team was led by Wesley Person, Cedric Henderson, Derek Anderson, Bob Sura, Shawn Kemp, Vitaly Potapenko and Brevin Knight.

They were a young team that was on the rise! That team also had the illest black, blue and white jerseys.

Brevin Knight was a lightning rod on that team. A pesky defender, he was a league leader in steals his rookie year in the NBA.The 16th pick in the 1997 NBA Draft by the Cleveland Cavaliers the 5’10” guard appeared on today’s episode of Scoop B Radio.

After playing under legendary coach Bob Farrell at Seton Hall Prep High School in West Orange, NJ in 1994, Knight was not heavily recruited by many major universities. He ended up getting a scholarship at Stanford University where he was the Pac-10’s Freshman of the Year. During his career at Stanford, he was named a Consensus second-team All-American in 1997 and was also a three-time, first-team all-Pac-10 member. Not bad for a guy who was the fourth ranked point guard coming of the Essex County, NJ high school hoops scene.

Among a range of topics, Knight discussed that 1997-98 team. Essentially, the team broke up after the 1998-99 lockout shortened season.  How well would they have done had they stayed? “We would of put ourselves in a great position to contend for a championship,” Brevin Knight told me on Scoop B Radio “And I say that because Fratello had us playing well on the defensive side and we had a guy to go to on the offensive side, with a shooter like Wesley Person out on the floor and a dynamic player like Bob Sura and Derek Anderson.

Check out Brevin Knight and Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson on Scoop B Radio

“Then we had guys like myself and Cedric Henderson, Z was coming into his own as a center who shot it from deep but also could play inside I think our versatility would have given us an opportunity to really be something to mess with as the years went along. The lockout, management issues didn’t allow it to go that way but I thought we had an opportunity to be a team who could contend in the east every year and then ultimately win the Eastern Conference Finals and then move on to the big show.”

Current fans of the NBA and the Cleveland Cavaliers are familiar with the wine and gold color scheme on team apparel and throughout the arena. That look is a nostalgic tribute to the days that former Cav Austin Carr was roaming ‘the land.’

Later on, the team switched to a white, orange and black color scheme. Mark Price, Brad Daughtery, Craig Ehlo and even current Golden State Warriors coach Steve Kerr donned those uniforms during that era. Quicken Loans Arena, then named Gund Arena (named after former Cavaliers owner Gordon Gund) had a blue theme too. “It was very blue,” said Knight. “But it was enthusiastic because the arena had not been around for long before we got there. It was still a novelty people loved to be able to come downtown and come to the arena and come to the games and for them to be able to go and see Shawn Kemp every night.

“And when we first got there was still on top of his game and even there when the lockout happened which I think really was the demise of our entire team having the lockout the next season he still came back and was a 20 and 10 guy and he just did it in a different way but the building was electric, the fans, and I think because of the youth of the team people were really able to get behind us.”

Many people know Dan Gilbert as the owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers. Long before Gilbert, there was Gordon Gund, a successful entrepreneur. The guy has a pretty diverse portfolio, too. An artist and sculptor, former co-owner of the NHL’s San Jose Sharks, Gund is the co-founder of Foundation Fighting Blindness. Gund who is blind himself, lost his sight to retinis pigmentosa himself.

There was always a mystery to Gund. What was he like? “He was cool, he never imposed himself on us,” said Knight. “But he was always available. He would listen to the games from up top and then when games were over we would see him, we would say hello to him. But I thought he did a good job. He was present when he needed to be but was always there when you had an issue.”

Knight expanded further on Gund:

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The post Brevin Knight on ’97 Cavs: “We would of put ourselves in a great position to contend for a championship” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

LOS ANGELES, CA – NOVEMBER 23: Derek Anderson #1 of the Los Angeles Clippers dunks against Latrell Sprewell #8 of the New York Knicks on November 23, 1999 at Staples Center in Los Angeles, California. NOTE TO USER: User expressly acknowledges and agrees that, by downloading and or using this photograph, user is consenting to the terms and conditions of the Getty Images License Agreement. Mandatory Copyright Notice: Copyright 1999 NBAE (Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images)

Derek Anderson was a fly dude when he entered the NBA.

The 13th pick in the 1997 NBA Draft by the Cleveland Cavaliers, Anderson was fresh off winning a NCAA National Championship with Kentucky, had a deal with the Jordan Brand and played on a Cavaliers squad that included Shawn Kemp, Brevin Knight, a young  Zydrunas Ilgauskas, Wesley Person, Cedric Henderson, Bob Sura and Vitaly Potapenko.

He’d go on to average 11 points a game and 1.5 steals. He’d play ten years in the league where he’d average 12 points a game playing for the Portland Trail Blazers, Charlotte Bobcats, Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs, Los Angeles Clippers and the Miami Heat.

On Saturday, Anderson was the keynote speaker at the A&M Sports Academy’s March Madness Fundraiser. A&M Sports Academy is a hoops mentoring program founded in 2008. While there, he discussed the highs and lows of his journey: being a parent by the age of fourteen, being shot and stabbed, losing his mom to substance abuse, winning championships in college and the professional level. Anderson thinks he left impact. “I think they left with a purpose of I need to finish what I start  and also I need to change my attitude if I want to win,” Anderson told me.

“Those two things have always been key.”

While chatting with the students at the A&M Sports Academy, Anderson showed a video montage  of his career. Homeboy was high flying, acrobatic and showcased his arsenal of moves during his career. He zig-zagged, criss-cross apple sauced and broke ankles via crossover moves on guys like fellow NBA retiree, Kobe Bryant. While watching the montage, you couldn’t help but notice that Anderson also dunked on NBA big men like Horace Grant and Dikembe Mutombo! “I pretty much got everybody,” said Anderson. “If I can remember I think I got every big man that I can remember. So I really wasn’t searching them out, but I was always like I would love to get one of those posters up.”

You’d think Anderson got the biggest joy on dunking on Mr. No-no-no Mutombo? Was it Horace Grant? How about Charles Barkley? “Neither,” Anderson said with a sly grin.

Check out Derek Anderson Chatting With Brandon ‘Scoop B’ Robinson on Scoop B Radio.

Apparently, Anderson has one guy in mind that he wanted to dunk on during his career that he couldn’t. “I was trying to dunk on Patrick Ewing,” Anderson said on Scoop B Radio. “I always see him trying to box out. I was growing up seeing him blocking everybody’s dunks. I see Dikembe do it but once I got Dikembe my rookie year, I was good. But I always tried to dunk on Patrick Ewing  because Jordan did it. Remember when Jordan baseline dunked on him? I always wanted to get one like that.”

In addition to chatting about his dunk conquests, the former Kentucky Wildcat also weighed in on his thoughts on the current Kentucky basketball squad and their stars chances at the next level. “I think if Monk ever plays defense he would be,” said Anderson. “But I think right now Fox is the key one. So Fox is the point guard. It’s a point guard driven league. If he continues to work on his jump shot and goes full speed like he is doing I think he will be a significant player.”

If you’re tardy to the party and not familiar with Anderson’s high-flying prowess, check it below

AAU culture is something that’s a hot button topic in sports. Kobe Bryant was critical about it in his farewell tour and Earl ‘The Pearl’ Monroe stated on the Scoop B Radio Podcast that it’s all about guard’s and forwards in the NBA. Derek Anderson weighed in as well on the debate. “I think it has changed dramatically,” said Anderson.

“I think what that is something that the AAU coaches just let their players do anything instead of teach them and train them. So now they don’t have any discipline. You look at that one kid who had 92 points, but he didn’t come past half court like half the time. Do you think our coaches would let us do that? No. He would have been all over us ‘Get back on defense play hard.’ But now there are so many coaches that let players be good so he can get a name and I think that is the issue with AAU. If they just roll the balls out and say: ‘who ever is talented go do it.’ And I think that is where AAU is failing us. The coaches aren’t demanding excellence. Therefore there is none.”

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The post Retired NBA Vet, Derek Anderson On Knicks’ Ewing: “I always tried to dunk on Patrick Ewing Because Jordan Did It” appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.