Buddy Hield Will Hit the Big Easy and the NBA Running and Gunning
By Chip Rouse
Like fellow Sooner basketball alum Blake Griffin, Buddy Hield should have an immediate impact on his new team, the New Orleans Pelicans of the NBA.
It did not take Griffin long to have an immediate and lasting impact as an NBA rookie and No. 1 overall pick of the Los Angeles Clippers in 2009, although he did not play in his first regular-season game for a year and a half after being drafted because of a knee injury suffered in the 2009-10 preseason.
Griffin more than made up for the year lost, averaging 22.5 points and 12.1 rebounds per game in his debut season in the league and being named to the Western Conference All-Star Team that same season.
Hield may not attain All-Star status in his NBA rookie season, but he clearly has the work ethic, the undeniable talent and the mental makeup to achieve star status in professional ball. And Pelicans coach Alvin Gentry and the New Orleans front office are banking that the confident and always-smiling 22-year-old from the Bahamas will earn that star sooner rather than later.
The winner of college basketball’s two most coveted individual prizes, the Naismith Trophy and the Wooden Award, this past college season, Hield knows that he is going to be counted on to be more than just a spot-up shooter and Stephen Curry-like three-point marksman.
New Orleans’ top pick in the just-completed NBA Draft recognizes that former first-round pick Anthony Davis is the current face of the Pelican franchise, and that his primary job as the new kid on the block is to help spread the floor and make things easier for Davis to get open looks and put the ball in the hole.
When asked, at his first NBA press conference following his draft selection last week, about what he brings to New Orleans to make the Pelicans a better team, Hield was quoted by ESPN.com staff writer Justin Verrier as saying, “Just (being) a great teammate.”
Judging by his years at Oklahoma, it’s hard to imagine the two-time All-American and twice Big 12 Player of the Year being anything but a team leader and the best of teammates. Hield is confident and smart enough to know that if he does that, the rest will take care of itself.
It’s O.K. to have high expectations of “Buddy Buckets” at the next level. He’s shown that he thrives in pressure situations and has no fear of being on the big stage, and he’s just too darn good and likeable not to ascend to the star level in the NBA.
It’s as simple and as slam-dunk as that.