Allen Crabbe waited, and waited, and waited, and waited.
Then he finally went to Cleveland. And then Portland. But in the aftermath of a long, arduous Thursday night in Brooklyn, all that mattered is that the former Cal standout was an NBA player.
Crabbe, last season’s Pac-12 Player of the Year, became the first Cal player since Ryan Anderson in 2008 to be drafted into the NBA. Even if the NBA made him wait.
After a standout season on the Berkeley campus, most expected that the 6-foot-6 guard would be drafted in the first round. Instead he was the first pick of the second.
“Things happen. I’m glad and blessed to be in the NBA,” Crabbe toldThe San Francisco Chronicle. “It’s not like I didn’t get picked at all. …
“I’m a professional basketball player now.”
The native of Los Angeles was picked by the Cleveland Cavaliers with the No. 31 pick then later swapped to the Portland Trail Blazers for two second-round selections.
“We are very proud of Allen,” Cal coach Mike Montgomery said in a statement. “This is a special night for both Allen and the entire Cal basketball program.”
But before there was Crabbe…
That other East Bay-based basketball team was busy making moves.
The Golden State Warriors, fresh off of their run to the second round of the NBA playoffs that saw Steph Curry rise to superstar status, the Dubs finagled their way into the draft and shored up their already-prolific backcourt by picking Serbian maestro Nemanja Nedovic with the No. 30 pick.
Originally without a first-round pick, the Warriors made a flurry of moves that involved a handful of swapped picks and a lot of dollar bills changing hands (the Chronicle has the full rundown here) and Golden State got itself a new addition.
“It all happened pretty quickly, but we’re happy with the result,” Warriors general manager Bob Myers told the Chronicle. “Every year, it’s a lot of stress and a lot of fun, but this was a different one. There was a ton of movement, a lot of teams looking to make deals – a flurry of deals.”
Nedovic, nicknamed the “European Derrick Rose,” averaged 9.8 points and 2.1 assists in his last professional season playing for Lietuvos rytas in Lithuania.
OK, so it’s not entirely local…
But in light of this weekend’s Pride festivities and slightly big news you may have heard of, it’s worth a mention.
Anthony Nicodemo, a 35-year-old high school basketball coach in New York, became one of the first openly gay male coaches in the region.
According to Deadspin, Nicodemo became inspired to come out after meeting former NBA player Jason Collins, who also recently came out, at an LGBT sports summit in Oregon.
“For years and years I’ve told you guys you have to be good, you have to be yourselves, you have to be honest,” Nicodemo told his team, according to MSG Varsity. “And I wasn’t honest for the past 35 years in my life.”
