What If? J.R. Smith and JamesOn Curry

This will be my first choice for the what-if segments of my blog. I know I hinted at some possible topic choices, mostly positive ones, but this one got me thinking the other day. What if these two guys came to North Carolina?

I don’t watch a lot of NBA games. I will follow the season vaguely because when you play 82 games, one game doesn’t mean very much to me. I do tend to keep tabs on former North Carolina players, just to see how they are doing. I was watching the Nuggets and Mavericks duke it out the other day and I was watching J.R. Smith. Do you remember him? He was a 2004 McDonald’s All-America on his way to North Carolina, along with Marvin Williams, JamesOn Curry, and Quentin Thomas.

J.R. Smith was an incredibly talented guard and I couldn’t wait to see him play. He was a bit short, but athletic and limitless range and could dunk. Well, he had a good showing at the McDonald’s game and his draft stock went up (remember the rule for at least one year of college was not in place yet) and he entered the draft and was taken with a middle draft pick. He has done pretty well for himself, establishing himself as a 6th man. But he has had a few run ins with authority figures as well. When I watch him play, he seems like such a head case. He’s arrogant and proud and quick tempered (Remember he was suspended for a few games because of fighting), but he is athletic and has limitless range.

JamesOn Curry was another guard who was similar to Smith, but probably not the dunking. Well he had some run-ins with the law (similar to John Wall, eh?), mostly because of a drug bust. UNC decided they were better off without him and released him from his Letter of Intent, where he ended up going to Oklahoma State. He later applied for the draft and was taken in the second round and bounced around the D-League for awhile.

What if these two had shown up to campus? At first, when they both said they weren’t coming, I was very disappointed because I thought we were losing some good players (I was young). Well, I’m glad they didn’t because that could really throw off the whole team concept in the 05 season. Remember this group went from all about me to all about we. Both of these players seem selfish to me and they don’t really have their heads on straight sometimes.

I know Coach Williams recruited them and is a firm believer in character and no-nonsense, so I think he would have made an impact on these young men’s lives, but still, you never know. What if J.R. Smith was a shoot-a-holic? What if JamesOn Curry is handing out drugs to Sean May and Marvin Williams? I think both of these guards would have been immensely talented and would have greatly helped out after the mass exodus in 05, but if they had played on that team, it probably wouldn’t be one of the all-time favorite Tar Heel teams. And they would have cut in on #50’s stats, which I’m glad didn’t happen.

Again, I know that Roy would have been laying down the law on these kids, but we were much better off without them. We did win the championship that year and the next year, we brought in the best player to ever play at North Carolina, so I will gladly take it.