That's cool. The Globetrotters were a big deal back in the day--they had prime-time specials, Bob Hope appearances. They were superstars. I guess the rise of the Jordan era just ruined it and it never recovered.

Dragged my wife and kids to see the trotters yesterday afternoon and as much as it pains me to say this, it was brutal. The days of Curley Neal and Goose Tatum are long gone. Half of the show was their absurd hip-hop "dancers" and the annoying MC who was desperately attempting to pump up the 1750 people who 1/4 filled the lower bowl of the Rosemont Horizon. Plus, these fucks shot like 40% from the field against the Washington Generals. I haven't seen so many missed dunks since Eddie Robinson. I want my $300 back. As an aside, there are a ton of fairly recent and familiar names on their all-time roster. Kenny Battle, Donnie Boyce, Olden Polynice, Bill Cosby (for real), and many more...

http://www.harlemglobetrotters.com/harl ... ime-roster

Donny Boyce? One of the Three Amigos from Proviso East?

Yesssir...... Donnie Boyce, Sherell Ford, and Michael Finley,

Even though I thought Boyce was coaching proviso east

You paid $300 to see the Globetrotters?

He currently is but it will very soon be was coaching Proviso East. He had "A Situation" while working as a security officer inside the school. He currently is on leave and a friend of mine Ced McCollough is currently the interim coach. It doesn't look good for Donnie Boyce on this one.

yeah IIRC the globetrotters worked back in the day because there was just the NBA for professional basketballers, and therefore more of the "street" guys without the raw athleticism to play in the NBA could hook up with the globetrotters and practice their crazy trick shots and etc etc. and evidently back then the showsmanship was on another level because they had to do things to make you go !!!!/DAAAAAMMMNNNN!!!!!! because society as a whole expected talent and passion from their entertainers.... now they're beyond-conditioned for mediocrity-at-best and they worship whatever's there simply because it's there.

also nowadays you've got european leagues, the NBDL, and other things to soak up that 2nd-tier of basketball talent, so they're not automatically going to gravitate to the globetrotters to eek out a living as a professional basketballer. hell, there's those and-1 teams/barnstorming-tours that purport to get the best street-ball talent in the world assembled on one team. cuz guys like the professor would never stand a chance in the NBA given the raw athleticism required to make it to/in the association.... so instead of automatically ending up a globetrotter they showcase their skills with the and-1 tour and yeah. that little white kid was sick cuz idk if he could even dunk but he had the flashy streetball game along with a cold jumper that allowed him to be the unlikely underdog to make it onto the and-1 tour from 2003-2010 (i remember he was the kid who was on that old ESPN2 "making the tour" and-1 show and he was basically the turd that wouldn't flush.... and after he hit a huge 3pt shot to win a game for his team @ madison square garden it was like "ok kid you made the team")

and yeah.... these and-1 tour guys were the kind of guys who would have been globetrotters many moons ago, but now the globetrotters are basically a nostalgic thing where grand/parents take their kids all like "these guys were awesome back when i was your age!" but as you and countless others have noticed... the globetrotters are basically some kind of a joke in the 2010s because they're getting fourth-or-fifth-tier-talent at best, and yeah, if you have legit skills odds are you're going to go make your $$$ elsewhere trying to sell shoes/clothes/whatever for and-1 before you become a globetrotter.

btw that and-1 MC guy who walks around with a mic doing the play by play over the live PA for the crowd = sheer and utter shit. holy crap i hate that guy. OH BABY!

Yeah he is. You must have been at the Proviso West Tournament? I happened to be sitting next to a few East fans who were already blaming him for the loss to Kenwood.

Was at a few great Proviso tournaments in the 90s after I went to LT. Three Amigos, Juwan Howard, Garnett, Proviso East vs West for the championship. I had a friend from college come to it and he was absolutely stunned by it. He was on some 3rd place in state team from Wyoming and Dubuque was the biggest city he'd ever been to at that time, and it's not like he thought his HS team was good or anything, but the quantum leap from Cody Wyoming to Proviso blew his mind.

Not recently but I attended a west suburban silver school so we played the provisos. I didn't play basketball given my husky nature but my friends who did talked about McCullough. Back in the that day west was better than east. My senior year our school started like 14-0 and then lost by like 20 to west. A couple friends came out after the game with tears in their eyes and I was like dude, you've never even come close to beating those guys. And they were all, you don't get it--coach just quit to take an NBA job. That coach? Bob Ociepka.

How did the Generals look? heard they got better?

Dragged my wife and kids to see the trotters yesterday afternoon and as much as it pains me to say this, it was brutalr