<div class="quote_poster">Quoting shapecity:</div><div class="quote_post">Diogu's Game Begins with Character</div> That is definitely Nigerian upbringing. Emeka Okafor is the same type of character and work ethic. These guys could have gotten into any school they wanted because they were smart, talented, and their parents pushed them.
High value's,charachter are often seen when fairly educated parents relocate their families,seeing greater hope here. Nigeria has a nasty history of corrupt warlord types running the show and an annual machette civil war,so " Nigerian values" are maybe a questionable category. i know some African immigrants who are really a class act-but they were in a fairly small educated,upper middle class back home-which can make you a target in an unstable society. I'm getting a warm feeling now that I'm not alone on the Ike bandwagon playing a long trumpet solo. Seems so recent that many insisted us taking Taft or Petro at 9 was a lock-and Ike would go later,a few spots below Monta ellis and louis williams. I think Monty got some strong feedback from Stanford folks. Ike shredded Stanford this year. Too small? He went through Palo Alto like Godzilla on angel dust,they must have thought he was KG. I noted elsewhere that if you are tending to narrow it down to guys who have a pretty well rounded package,have NBA game now-not holes to patchup,skills and attitudes to redo,then you likely expect to get the guy in games. Frequent themes here were that niether Dunleavy or Murphy plays real good D,and Adonal has some troubles on the offensive end. Ike was the guy,especially because he is a boost in those problem areas. Ike figures to get action,will score 12+,with 6+ boards,not quite having full time minutes-but he could win a bigger role and have even better numbers. In a couple of years he will have a pretty good stat sheet,plenty of impact,
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting REREM:</div><div class="quote_post">High value's,charachter are often seen when fairly educated parents relocate their families,seeing greater hope here. Nigeria has a nasty history of corrupt warlord types running the show and an annual machette civil war,so " Nigerian values" are maybe a questionable category. i know some African immigrants who are really a class act-but they were in a fairly small educated,upper middle class back home-which can make you a target in an unstable society. I'm getting a warm feeling now that I'm not alone on the Ike bandwagon playing a long trumpet solo. Seems so recent that many insisted us taking Taft or Petro at 9 was a lock-and Ike would go later,a few spots below Monta ellis and louis williams. I think Monty got some strong feedback from Stanford folks. Ike shredded Stanford this year. Too small? He went through Palo Alto like Godzilla on angel dust,they must have thought he was KG. I noted elsewhere that if you are tending to narrow it down to guys who have a pretty well rounded package,have NBA game now-not holes to patchup,skills and attitudes to redo,then you likely expect to get the guy in games. Frequent themes here were that niether Dunleavy or Murphy plays real good D,and Adonal has some troubles on the offensive end. Ike was the guy,especially because he is a boost in those problem areas. Ike figures to get action,will score 12+,with 6+ boards,not quite having full time minutes-but he could win a bigger role and have even better numbers. In a couple of years he will have a pretty good stat sheet,plenty of impact, </div> I think us Warriors fans have always felt in danger with the safe pick since the Twardzick days, kind of like how Twardzick now went straight for Fran Vasquez rather than Green or Granger (look at their shooting guard and small forward situation and also their upside). With Diogu, he may be safe, but he seems like the real deal so who cares about "safe" or overused terms like "upside". There's no real flaws in his game and he's not like a stiff like Fuller or raw like Foyle or a one-dimensional, one-hit wonder like Joe Smith who refuses to do the dirty work or lacks the strength to guard power forwards full time. Diogu could play in a way which makes the team better if he's good enough to draw double team respect and hit open shooters. I'm not sure if he's the type to do it successfully every night, but he'll be a threat when the matchups are in his favor and he simply outmuscles or outhustles or outsmarts opponents. We'll see if he can live up to the expectations. I just hope we don't go through another long playoff drought like after 1975 until the Don Nelson days and again after 1994. We need to at least keep something going... And the part about educated parents relocating their families is definitely true. But I do know a lot of smart people whose parents were from Nigeria so that's why I figured it was the cultural upbringing. It could be an immigrant thing in general too. I also know a lot of smart Iranian and Asian friends whose parents or themselves weren't originally born here, so I definitely see what you're saying.
