Perhaps John Groce and Illinois lucked out when Cliff Alexander rejected them? Had Alexander picked the Illini instead of just trolling them on signing day, maybe his freshman year would have gone differently?
Or maybe not. Kansas didn’t have a whole of positives with their Cliff Alexander experience either. Yet here we are, still talking about a guy who went un-drafted, and didn’t accomplish anything on the college level either.
Alexander had a disastrous rookie season, lost his eligibility due to his mother allegedly taking money from an agent, supposedly bad-mouthed KU on his way out, and did not get picked in the NBA Draft Thursday night. A year ago at this time he was rated the #2 prospect in the entire NBA Draft class.
When he signed with KU, he was the third ranked prospect in the nation.
Now a NBA career seems like it’s just a pipe dream.
In the wee hours of Friday morning following the draft, Cliff Alexander was the 2nd highest trending term on Twitter. That’s because he’s the biggest name (with the exception of Aaron Harrison) who didn’t get drafted. Back to supposed Alexander negativity on Kansas during the pre-draft process. Bill Self claims that wasn’t true.
Bill Self pushed back against the idea that Cliff Alexander was negative toward Kansas during pre-draft process: pic.twitter.com/jimtcG2Fqy
— Rustin Dodd (@rustindodd) June 26, 2015
Off the court issues are nothing new to Cliff Alexander. They have accompanied him at every step of his basketball journey. Beginning at Curie High School in Chicago, which was ranked the #2 ranked team in the nation at the time. The Curie Condors had to forfeit their entire season and vacate all their wins, including the city title over Jahlil Okafor and Whitney Young due to seven players being academically ineligible.
There’s on-the-court issues too.
Even before Alexander was suspended from Kansas on February 28th, he wasn’t contributing much for the Jayhawks. He had just 28 total points in the entire month of February. In his last three games, Cliff Alexander played a grand total of 27 minutes. His freshman season was a total bust.
As was his Draft night (and pre-draft process obviously).
That doesn’t mean his story is over though. He can catch on overseas. Or in the D-League. Or make a name for himself in Summer League.
Alexander has obviously received a lot of bad advice and made some worse decisions. But that doesn’t mean he can’t come back from all this.
Started from the bottom before #motivation
— Cliff Alexander (@CAlexander) June 26, 2015
Maybe Alexander will go on to have an All-Star NBA career. Or maybe we won’t be talking about him after today. One thing’s for sure- he’s just as polarizing as ever.
On both sides, people overreact WAY TOO MUCH to his story. What he did to Illinois was bad, but it was two years ago, and it wasn’t that big of deal. Alexander is not a terrible human being like Jereme Richmond; and any analogies between Alexander and Richmond are beyond ridiculous.
Illini fans need to move on and let it go. Illini basketball has much bigger issues to resolve. Alexander’s career should be the least of their worries. Illinois hasn’t had a player taken in eight of the past nine NBA Drafts. They haven’t advanced to the second weekend of the NCAA Tournament or finished ranked in the top 25 since 2006. No amount of Cliff Alexander schadenfreude is going to change that.
Alexander didn’t break the program (neither did Eric Gordon). Mike Thomas and John Groce are the people you should be pointing fingers at.
On the flip side, Alexander is not someone to root for either. There’s nothing about his story that makes him a sympathetic character. The local Chicago media figures hoping and wishing that he becomes the next big thing are no more fair and balanced than the Illini fans who danced on his career grave Thursday night.
There are however, some people out there with good, measured, even-handed takes on all this:
Very sad to see the situation Cliff Alexander is in right now. SO MUCH talent, but was brought down by bad decisions/directions.
— Taylor Rooks (@TaylorRooks) June 26, 2015
Quite a run of disaster for Cliff Alexander: city title forfeited, 1st round exit from state tourney, college career cut short, undrafted.
— Michael O'Brien (@michaelsobrien) June 26, 2015
Cliff Alexander is a sad story.
— Pat Forde (@ByPatForde) June 26, 2015
What you see above are exceptions, not the rule. For some reason, Cliff Alexander is just one of those guys (like Tommy Rees or Kyle Orton) who inspires the extremely ignorant to provide very unintelligent sports punditry.
Hopefully that changes moving forward. The jock sniffers in the local Chicago media who glorify him are just as bad as the Illini fans who won’t let it go. We all did lots of really stupid stuff when we were teenagers.
It’s just that our stuff wasn’t televised on national television.
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and writes The Sports Bank.net, which is partnered with Fox Sports Digital. Banks, a former writer for the Washington Times, currently contributes to the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. He also appears regularly on numerous sports talk radio stations all across the country.