Shaun Pruitt - 24 games, 34.3 mpg, 18.8 ppg, 13.4 rpg, 0.7 apg, 2.3 fpg, 0.5 spg, 1.3 bpg, 51% FG, 40% 3PT, 39% FT
Isabela Cocks started the season with a double team of Pruitt and Green. (Filthy girl.) Green was playing well early, but injured his knee after four games, and missed a couple of games. He returned, but his performance tailed off, and he was released three games later, replaced by Alando Tucker. Tucker was fresh out of the NBA after being waived by the Minnesota Timberwolves, and after a pretty terrible debut (16 points on 21 shots), he started to play well for the team. However, his performance also began to tail off, totalling only 15 points and 2 rebounds in his final two games with the team, and he was released at the All-Star break after only 6 games.
Tucker was replaced by CBA staple, Lee Benson, an elder statesmen with comparatively little higher level basketball experience due to the fact that he spent almost all of his 20's in prison. Nevertheless, he was a valid NBA draft candidate in 2002 at the age of 28, after only one season of junior college; this speaks to his talent level. He's been demonstrating that talent in China lately, averaging 34.1 ppg, 18.8 rpg, 5.6 apg and 2.0 bpg in the CBA in the 2008/09 season, and playing there again this year. However, even though prison was supposed to teach him discipline, it didn't seem to; Benson and Pruitt were both released in early May for disciplinary reasons, even though they were two of the team's only 5 good players at the time, and the two best rebounders in the entire league. For more on that, read
here.
Isabella doesn't take it lying down, though, and another CBA veteran (LaSalle forward Reggie Okosa) and another NBA training camper (Jared Reiner) were quickly brought into her fold. (Giggidies all round.) The duo played the last seven games of the regular season, putting up the solid but unspectacular numbers outlined above - the only thing of note was that Reiner, who had not hit a single three pointer in either his college or professional career (a span of 10 years and several hundred games) suddenly started to reform himself into a three point shooter. He attempted sixteen of them in 8 games, making four, and somehow managed to attempt only 3 free throws to 107 total field goals. Maybe the now-28 year old Reiner has begun to subscribe to the
Paul Shirley school of thought, whereby he'll only continue the slog of professional basketball if he can do what's fun for him, i.e. jumpshots. I'm not sure that it's helping him in the short term.
However, around came the playoffs. The eighth seeded Cocks were matched up against the mighty Bayamon. And it didn't go well. Isabela was run ragged in their opening game, losing by a whopping 40 points and somehow giving up 114 points in a 40 minute game. Instant changes were made; Reiner and Okosa were released, NBA veteran Sam Clancy was brought in, and, bizarelly, Pruitt returned for the team's last two games. But it made no difference. The depthless Cocks were firmly screwed by the mighty Cowboys (who presumably then ate pudding), and the sweep was wrapped up with relative ease.
