best of summer jazz v. 4d

SoCalHoops High School & Prep News

Best of Summer Tournament
New Orleans Jazz v. 4D Stars--(July 22, 1998)

The New Orleans Jazz and the 4D Stars faced off last night, and it was a total wipeout as the Jazz just hammered the locals. But that's not the big story. The big story is that the Jazz are one very tall, very talented team, and we'd be surprised if the tournament doesn't come down to DC Assault, Team Texas Blue Chips, and the Jazz, with maybe EBO, Pump & Run I (if they play with their regular roster), and the Spartans. Of course the Long Island Panthers & Friends of Hoop I might challenge, but there are few teams that are more dominant right now than the Jazz

They are a very tall team, and there's not a single player who actually showed up yesterday who was under 6'-1". Here's the starting roster:

Derrick Zimmerman (6'-2" Sr. G)
Thomas Davis (6'-7" Sr. F)
Andy Slocum (6'-11" Sr. F/C)
Jonathon Bender (6'-11" Sr. C)
Barry Carter (6'-6" Sr. G/F)
Courtney Trusk (6'-4" Sr. G)
Rickey Bennett (6'-2" Sr. G)
Ronald Dupree (6'-6" Sr. G/F)
Chris Duhon (6'-1" Jr. G)

The roster also carries Brandon Span (5'-10" Sr. PG), but he was nowhere to be found.

Jonathon Bender, for our money, is every bit as good, and yesterday was actually better, than Dermarr Johnson of DC Assault. We realize that DC Assault is a very talented team, and lots of people were talking about Dermarr at the beginning of the year as someone who might be ready for the NBA. Forget it. He's good, in fact a dominating player with tons of potential to be a very high D-I player, and then possibly an NBA lottery pick, but no way is he ready to make the jump. Neither for that matter is Bender, but we really liked what we saw yesterday.

Bender is the closest thing to a really tall Tayshaun Prince that we've seen. He has a decent handle for someone almost 7' tall, can shoot from inside and outside, and has a very big vertical leap, just springing up and towering over everyone on the rebound. Henry Bibby from USC was watching this game very intently, and we're pretty sure that he wasn't there to watch the 4D players, even though a couple of them were pretty decent players.

Andy Slocum is a bit stockier than Bender, but with these two twin towers in at the same time, the 4D guys had no chance Slocum had 23 points, and Bender, the most athletic 6'-11" guy at the tournament we saw, must have had about 17. Both are very high D-I players.

Derrick Zimmerman and courtney Trusk traded responsibilities at the point, and both can handle the ball exceptionally well, and both play very good fundamental defense. Zimmerman has an especially good handle, and when he dribbles protects the ball better than most guards we've seen in a while. Chris Duhon is really more of a combo guard, in the sense that he's neither a 1 nor a 2, but can handle either spot with ease, and he's a great perimeter shooter.

4D tried, played hard, and at one point cut the deficit to only 14 at the half after being down by 25 very early on. Anthony Naylor (6'-3" Jr. G) from Harvard-Westlake suffered a very bad dislocated shoulder in the first few minutes of the game, and it was a tough loss for 4D as they had a very short bench yesterday. Naylor was taken to the hospital, but later returned to the tournament to watch some of the other games, telling us "it's ok, my arm popped back into the socket on the way to the hospital." Er, um, ok Anthony. Tough kid.

Dan Kinzer (6'-8" Sr. F/C) from Harvard-Westlake also played well, but was really overmatched by the Jazz guys, and couldn't really do much. He kept getting drawn way out on defense, and without him down low, 4D didn't present much of a threat defensively.

Jermel Brooks (5'-7" Sr. PG) from North (Torrance?) played really well, and he's a very good player who's only shortcoming (no pun intended) is that he's short. Other than that, he's got the handle, the speed, makes good decisions, and there were actually a couple of schools out there looking last night looking at him. A very nice player.

Others who showed up for 4D were Charlie Kundrat (6'-4" Sr. G/F) from Peninsula High, Marquia Worthy (6'-3" Sr. G/F) from Sonora who was really overwhelmed, and Lamar Lawrence (6'-6" Grad SF/PF) from Torrance, formerly of Bishop Montgomery, who used to be tough on d and get rebounds, but yesterday did a lot of standing around and watching, probably sensing the futility of the situation against the Jazz. He weighs about 230, didn't have an outside J, and really didn't use the normally good handle handle he posses or his passing skills to run the break like he used to at Bishop. He's still a great kid, even if he didn't bring all of his game last night, and looking at the Jazz and his undermanned 4D team, who could blame him.

It was a fun, entertaining game, and we want to wish Anthony Naylor a speedy recovery.