Hoops Alumni

With a chance at the NBA Championship on the line for Boston and Miami beginning with the Eastern Conference finals tonight in Beantown, there is obviously a lot of talk about Erik Spoelstra, but another Portland Pilot is also a big factor in this series, Celtics top assistant, Ben Sullivan.

A Lake Oswego High grad, a player at UP, and later an assistant on The Bluff, Sullivan has had successful stints with San Antonio and Atlanta before winning the NBA Championship at Milwaukee in 2021...and now he could add another ring to his resume'.  

At age 39, Ben certainly has a chance to be a head coach one day, but the rumor is he is going to get a big raise and head to the Houston Rockets to join former Celtics coach, Ime Udoka, who was recently hired there.

DoubleDipper wrote:With a chance at the NBA Championship on the line for Boston and Miami beginning with the Eastern Conference finals tonight in Beantown, there is obviously a lot of talk about Erik Spoelstra, but another Portland Pilot is also a big factor in this series, Celtics top assistant, Ben Sullivan.

A Lake Oswego High grad, a player at UP, and later an assistant on The Bluff, Sullivan has had successful stints with San Antonio and Atlanta before winning the NBA Championship at Milwaukee in 2021...and now he could add another ring to his resume'.  

At age 39, Ben certainly has a chance to be a head coach one day, but the rumor is he is going to get a big raise and head to the Houston Rockets to join former Celtics coach, Ime Udoka, who was recently hired there.

Throw in former SMC Gael and Westview HS grad Garrett Jackson you have a lot of 503 flavor along side departing Stoudamire and Sullivan

Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals tonight...

Hoping Coach Spoelstra and team don't make history.

up7587 wrote:Hoping Coach Spoelstra and team don't make history.

No historic comeback for Boston. After losing the first three games, they won three in a row to set up being the first NBA team to win a series after down 3-0. But Coach Spoelstra's Miami team dominated the entire game, and advance to the NBA final against the Denver Nuggets.

With Miami's win, the #8 seed Heat have to face the overall #1 seed Denver Nuggets that demolished the Western Conference behind the play of Nikola Jokic.

The only tie between UP/Erik/Denver I could find (and it's ridiculously slight) is Erik's dad, Jon, was the President and GM at Denver while Erik was the UP-point guard.

Making it even more slight, Jon was only with the Nuggets for 90 days before quitting over a "dispute with management."  (Seems like if you are the president and general manager you are management, but oh well   ).

A bit of a deep dive into Erik Spoelstra...a kid that will always be a kid to those of us who watched him play on The Bluff...

https://www.nba.com/news/erik-spoelstra-winning-habits-sets-him-apart

The NBA Championship series begins tonight in Denver...

Pooh Jeter joins the Trail Blazers staff as assistant GM of the new G League team and as part of the player development staff for the Trail Blazers. Welcome back!

ExpatPilot wrote:Pooh Jeter joins the Trail Blazers staff as assistant GM of the new G League team and as part of the player development staff for the Trail Blazers. Welcome back!

That's great news!!

Pooh, mostly recently playing on Las Vegas, has often told UP President Rob Kelly and Coach Legans, "let me know how I can help the university."  So, it should be a good relationship.

The Jeter news is beautiful!

Nice to see Yudzhin Dzheter back on the bluff.

Maybe he still has some Ukraine contacts.

Back in January, Pooh was talking about moving into "coaching and the front office" while helping develop NBA prospects as a member or the NBA G Leage Ignite.




NBA G League Ignite is a first-of-its-kind team dedicated to developing top young prospects in preparation for the NBA Draft. Based in Henderson, Nevada, the roster includes elite players who are eligible for the NBA Draft as well as NBA and NBA G League veterans who serve as mentors to the team’s young talent.

Interesting fact: Forty-seven percent of the players on start-of-season NBA rosters had NBA G League experience when the 2022-23 season tipped off last October.