Kidd Funkadelic

There’s a scene in the middle of Phantasm II where an evil minion finishes grinding down the skeletal remains of some poor sap and funnels them into a labeled bag. The name on the label? Sam Raimi. As if it weren’t clear enough from the film already, writer-director Don Coscarelli acknowledges a kinship with the director of The Evil Deadand Evil Dead II, another series defined by elaborate mythology, slapstick comedy, cool practical effects, and an impish cult sensibility. That Coscarelli made Phantasm II at Universal helped buff out some of the original film’s rough edges—though the studio only allotted $3 million—but it otherwise feels pleasingly lost in his own hand-crafted universe. Along with Raimi, Coscarelli cut against the grain of ’80s horror, leavening scares with comedy and making icons out of Angus Scrimm’s “The Tall Man” and a roving silver sphere that functions as a kind of deadly Swiss Army Ball. 

Picking up right where the first Phantasm left off—a radical move in itself, given that the first film came out a full nine years earlier—Phantasm II opens with a quick recap of how the last one ended before cutting to six years later, when the boy hero has grown into James LeGros. (Coscarelli attempted to use the entire original cast, but the studio balked on A. Michael Baldwin.) LeGros’ wild account of what happened to him has landed him in an institution, but he fakes his way out after receiving psychic messages from Paula Irvine, who shares his connection to The Tall Man, a mortician assembling a dwarf-sized army of the dead. LeGros convinces his older buddy Reggie Bannister to come along on a mission to stop The Tall Man, who’s been going from small town to small town, exhuming bodies from graveyard coffins. 

Coscarelli’s interest in creating oddball genre pieces for an imagined cult audience—his other films include The Beastmaster, Bubba Ho-Tep, and John Dies At The End—is a strength and weakness. The Phantasm series offers a wealth of information about creature types, psychic phenomena, and other dimensions for fans to unpack, but those elements can gum up the action, too, and there are stretches of Phantasm II that make the simple quest of defeating The Tall Man into a complicated muddle. But Coscarelli is a whiz with dialogue—assessing their dim chances, LeGros says to Bannister,  “I’m a 19-year-old kid and you’re a bald, middle-aged ex-ice cream vendor”—and the film has a refreshing spirit of adventure uncommon to the genre, especially in the slasher ’80s. At a certain point, LeGros and Bannister come armed with a flamethrower and a quadruple-barreled mega-shotgun, respectively, and if there’s no fun to be had in that, there’s no fun to be had at all in this world. 

Robot uprising, Mega Man 2 (1989)

Creating a fiction based in the near future requires writers to go out on a limb—before they know it, real-world events will test their predictions. The creators of Mega Man 2were at least clever enough to hedge their bets as they concocted a world where machines go mad. The global “industrial robot” revolt that provides the backdrop for Mega Man’s second adventure is said to take place in “200X,” giving the game a generous 10-year span in which its cybernetic dystopia could come to fruition. You can almost picture series producer Keiji Inafune crossing his fingers for the bot apocalypse as Dec. 31, 2009 rolled around. Yet robots remained pretty docile as history tested for every value of “X.” A recent 60 Minutes report on the encroaching threat of robots couldn’t come up with anything more threatening than a few squat orange warehouse helpers (although those do bear passing resemblance to Mega Man’s ubiquitous hard-hat “Met” bots). But starting with Mega Man 5, the series’ timeline shifted to the even more vague “20XX.” Can humanity hold out for another 87 years?

Presidential kidnapping, Bad Dudes (1988)

The year is 1988, and some shit has gone down. Ninjas have kidnapped President Ronnie (that’s Ronald Reagan for the whippersnappers), and there’s just one question: Are you a bad enough dude to rescue him from ninjas?! Only the arcade version ofBad Dudes mentions Reagan by name. Since Nintendo Of America in the 1980s was wary of anything that resembled political leanings, the NES version featured a nameless president looked more like George Bush. Regardless, as of this writing, neither Ronald Reagan or any other president has been kidnapped by ninjas—although Dennis Kucinich did insist that he saw a UFO during a presidential debate in 2005.

North Korea goes even more rogue, Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2 (2004)

It’s hard to imagine Tom Clancy himself coming up with a better foil for post-Cold War America than North Korea. In a country whose government deifies its leaders and proclaims with a straight face that it has discovered a secret unicorn lair, anything could happen. That’s why the plot of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon 2 seems semi-reasonable. The Xbox and GameCube editions of the game—the PlayStation 2 version is somewhat different—are set in the year 2011 and feature a rogue general who seizes control of the country’s nuclear arsenal because he’s angry about the government’s silly domestic spending in the wake of a national famine. NATO, and consequently a Ghost Recon squad of super-soldiers, are soon called in to stop the general from igniting a war with surrounding Asian countries. 2011 didn’t quite happen that way, but perhaps an asterisk should be granted because North Korea did see a big leadership change in 2011. That was the result of Kim Jong-Il’s death, though, and there’s been no military coup—yet.

Russian rebels threaten Western powers, Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (2007)

The writers of the first Modern Warfare tried to one-up Tom Clancy with their own bit of head-spinning techno-thriller military fiction. It’s the year 2011, and Russia is embroiled in a civil war between government loyalists and a faction of ultra-nationalists bent on restoring the country to its U.S.S.R. heyday. One of the rebel commanders makes a deal with an officer in an unnamed, oil-rich Middle Eastern nation to distract the U.S. from the Russian problem. Decidedly non-wacky military hijinks ensue, including a U.S. invasion of the Middle East and a near-nuking of the Eastern Seaboard, stopped at the last minute by a plucky squad of Marines and British Special Forces. One part of the yarn did essentially come true: In Modern Warfare„ the U.S. military sends an elite unit into the Middle East to assassinate a high-profile target, fictional ultra-nationalist Khaled Al-Asad. A similar scenario took place in real-life 2011, when the target was Osama Bin Laden.

Hitler comes back to life, Bionic Commando (1988)

Bionic Commando was, depending on your perspective, either deeply cynical or deeply optimistic about the future. On the one hand, it predicted that just a year after its release, technology would have advanced so far that people would be able to swing around on bionic arms and revivify people that had been dead for 40 years. At the same time, the game also predicted that said technology would be employed in a modern war against a resurrected Adolf Hitler. Radd Spencer’s mission takes place in 1989—the date comes from a picture shown during the game’s closing credits—and its objective is to rescue a famous soldier from a ferocious Neo-Nazi military. It culminates in the resurrection of a burly Adolf Hitler, right before your eyes. As if that weren’t a disturbing enough, the only way to stop Hitler is to shoot him in the face with a missile. (Capcom deemed it necessary to portray the process in graphic detail.) The real 1989 was free from Nazi conquest—but also free of bionic grappling hooks. Shame.

Zombie viruses ravage the planet, the president’s daughter is kidnapped, nuclear bombs detonate on U.S. soil; Resident Evil series (1996-2012)

Resident Evil started out so innocently back in 1996. Director Shinji Mikami was tasked with making a horror video game inspired by Capcom’s old NES oddity Sweet Homeand he got to make a contemporary haunted house. He created a mansion full of zombies who were borne from a pharmaceutical company bent on world domination—perfect entertainment for the X-Files era. Subsequent entries in the series further developed Resident Evil’s insane otherworld timeline. In 1998, the government drops a nuclear bomb on a U.S. city (Resident Evil 3). In 2005, the president’s daughter is kidnapped by monstrous Spaniards (Resident Evil 4). In Resident Evil 6’s vision of 2013, a giant, bloody, eyeball-spewing T-rex attacks China—that one hasn’t come true, either, but the year is young.

Nuclear war causes criminal uprising, Double Dragon 2: The Revenge (1988)

It’s 19XX, and there’s been some sort of nuclear war. As far as Double Dragon 2: The Revenge is concerned, though, the only place affected is New York City, which is overtaken by violence and criminal syndicates in the wake of the mushroom clouds. What does this mean for the Big Apple? Well, it looks a lot more prison-y, and all the buildings have been turned purple and yellow. One thing that’s nice about the “city overtaken by violence” future is it can explain away practically any dubious narrative premise—like why everyone wants to kill the heroes, Billy and Jimmy Lee, or why no one bats an eyelash when two karate-men fight a helicopter on a rooftop. Clearly this isn’t a future that involved the election of Rudy Giuliani. He would never have tolerated such savagery (or purple buildings).

U.S. president is a secret terrorist, Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001)

When presidents leave office, they usually have a number of post-White House options open to them. Some, like Carter or Clinton, become diplomats. Others retire to their ranch to pen bland memoirs. Still others utilize their genetic enhancements to wage a covert war against an Illuminati-esque terrorist group with which they were once allied. George Sears, the fictional 43rd president of these United States in theMetal Gear chronology, does just this several years after leaving office. Sears, a.k.a. Solidus Snake (in actuality a perfect genetic clone of a legendary mercenary leader) spends his twilight years trying to take down those that put him in power. To the best of our knowledge, George W. Bush—whose real-life administration timeline roughly coincides with that of Sears/Snake—has yet to do the same. Then again, we haven’t seen too much of the guy lately.

George Feeny looked around the empty classroom. A storied figure in the Philadelphia-area academy, George Feeny was the only educator in the City of Brotherly Love to go from middle-school teacher to college professor in less than a decade—and yet, here he was, trapped among the same anonymous desks and motivational posters for 13 years, doomed by two words: “Class dismissed.” With that, George Feeny excused himself from the lives he was sworn to guide, a godlike figure pulling the strings of four students whom he’d come to look upon as his own children: the Matthews brothers, Cory and Eric; Topanga Matthews (née Lawrence), who, like Feeny, seemed inextricably fated to a life unfolding side-by-side with Cory’s; and reformed wild child Shawn Hunter. In later years, it’d become increasingly important for George Feeny to keep an eye on Eric, whose devolution into a tittering man-child appeared to be the work of beings whose power over this world were greater than those of George Feeny.

Everything outside the classroom changed, but George Feeny did not. 

Had he overstepped his bounds? Had he devoted too much attention to the Matthews boys and let other students fall by the wayside? Was this his punishment for swapping roles with Cory for one week of sixth grade, ignoring the edification of the rest of his class to teach a lesson to a single student? Had there been too many Harvey “Harley” Keiners and Griffin “Griff” Hawkinses, seemingly interchangable ne’er do wells whose misdeeds never demanded Feeny’s attention the way young Mr. Hunter’s did?

Outside his window, boys meeting world became men knowing that world, and those men in turn sired daughters who must meet the world in the same way their fathers did. But George Feeny would not be there introduce world to girl, and for that George Feeny cursed the forces that kept him standing in place. He shouted at the vengeful gods who kept him from those he loved—especially that one female professor he fell in love with and probably married at some point? It’d been so long, he could no longer remember.

Being unable to take any more of this eternal torture, George Feeny grabbed a nearby globe—that un-spinning sphere whose stasis so cruelly mirrored his own—determined to use his unearthly, destiny-shaping powers to hurl the taunting object through the window and escape back into the life he’d been denied. “My name is George Feeny!” he cried. “Not ‘Weeny’! Feeny!” George Feeny drew his arms back, hoping to smash the glass in the same way he’d smashed the naysayers who claimed he couldn’t follow a single student through the boy’s entire academic career. He sounded a barbaric yawp: “Fee-naaaaaaaaaaaaay!”

But just then he heard a voice—the first voice besides his own that he’d heard in 13 years. “Bill, they’re ready for you.” Bill—something about that name stirred within George Feeny, even more so than this strangely familiar voice. This was it—this was escape. George Feeny gathered himself, cleared his throat, and walked toward the back of the room. The light emanating from the doorway was warm and welcome. Beyond it, he could hear the sounds of laughter. George Feeny was fulfilled. George Feeny was free. George Feeny was appearing in the pilot of Girl Meets World, just as it was written—just as it must be.

Having decided that a Shawn Ryan-run, Eddie Murphy-assisted Beverly Hills Cop TV show was too big of a risk, likely due to the volatility of Judge Reinhold, CBS has instead picked up the legal drama Reckless, a show whose title is an ironic twist on the actual relative safety of the network’s decision. The network describes Reckless, which marks a reunion between Twilight director Catherine Hardwicke and its sort-of-star Cam Gigandet, as “a sultry legal show.” Possibly this is just because it’s set in South Carolina, where even getting your teeth cleaned is “sultry,” but also because it involves a “gorgeous Yankee litigator” who banters sexily with a sexy Southern attorney, both of them trying to hide their sexual desires while sparring over a police sex scandal, with the sex.

“Have you been debriefed?” Southern attorney Sugar LaBonIntercourse will ask Yankee attorney Turk Bagelsandcunnilingus. “Not yet… But maybe you should buy me dinner first,” Turk will reply with a wink. “Because ‘briefs’ can also mean ‘underwear,’” he’ll add, as the sultry South Carolina sunlight gently penetrates the windows, and the windows can’t deny that they like it. “Lordy, lordy,” someone will say, at some point.

The other show deemed worthy of joining CBS’ long lineage of things you’ve seen some version of before is Friends With Better Lives, a Friends-style ensemble comedy from Friends veterans Dana Klein and James Burrows, with Friends right there in the title. As previously reported, James Van Der Beek and Kevin Connolly play gynecologists who really know their away around a vagina, if you know what they mean and imply weekly. Meanwhile, supermodel Brooklyn Decker hones the comedy chops that a lot of guys have told her she has, probably. Friends (But Better!) joins CBS’ other recently acquired new sitcoms and possibly a couple more that could still be announced on Wednesday—like maybe a revived Rules Of Engagement, which we still believe was struck down only to become even stronger.  

With each passing update on CBS’ Beverly Hills Cop series, the absence of Judge Reinhold became more deeply felt. After all, a Beverly Hills Cop TV series without Judge Reinhold is, dare we say, a pointlessly opportunistic exploitation of an established comedy brand in watered-down CBS procedural form that does not have Judge Reinhold. But apparently we need worry nor concoct absurd explanations about a coked-up Judge Reinhold waging a scorched-earth war against co-star John Ashton no more: The Wrap reassures us that Reinhold will be a part of at least the pilot, briefly reprising his role of Detective Billy Rosewood, who has “scored a big promotion from his old job.” So we can all relax. Presumably producers were forced to journey deep into the jungles to find Reinhold, approaching him after one of his daily stick-fights to convince him to come full circle and see the mission through. “Not this time. My war’s over,” Reinhold said. “Not the one inside you, Judge,” they said. “Not the one inside.” 

Here are five guys in each category who came to mind while I watched the first week of the 2013 NBA playoffs.

“How Did He Get So Good?”

1. Chandler Parsons

What he was: At Florida from 2007 to 2011, Parsons was a stretch 4 who was capable of knocking down 3s but wasn’t exactly a lights-out shooter. He never rose above being Florida’s third-leading scorer, even though Parsons’s first three seasons were three of the worst Billy Donovan–coached Florida teams ever. The Gators did make the Elite Eight in his senior season, but Parsons didn’t lead them there. Gator forward Alex Tyus (who is averaging eight points a game for Cantu in the Italian League this season) outplayed Parsons throughout that entire tournament. Parsons was a good-but-not-great college player whom I had pegged as a middling journeyman in the NBA.

What he is now: Parsons has been in the NBA for only two years, but his career scoring average as a pro is higher than any of his individual-season scoring averages at Florida. That sentence alone should give you a good idea of how surprising Parsons’s NBA success has been. But he’s more than just a decent scorer in the NBA — Gerald Henderson and Ramon Sessions are living proof that anybody can put up points for a bad team. Parsons is a major contributor on a playoff team, and he shares the ball with James Harden, one of the most trigger-happy players in the league. Considering all that, with the exception of the lack of a SiriusXM channel that plays nothing but Disney songs, Parsons’s success in the NBA is the biggest mystery in the world to me.

2. DeAndre Jordan

What he was: To be fair, I remember watching Jordan at Texas A&M and thinking his game was much better suited for the NBA than for college ball. He was long and athletic and at his best in an up-and-down style of game, instead of the slow, grinding style so many college teams favor. Still, I was surprised when Jordan turned pro after his freshman season in 2008, since he averaged only eight points and six rebounds. At that time, he was more of an athletic specimen than a basketball player, which is why I guessed he would spend three or four years as a benchwarmer, get abused in practice and scrub time, then possibly have his confidence destroyed and end up in Europe.

3. Paul George

What he was: Pretend you know nothing about Paul George. Now imagine there’s a guy in this year’s draft who is 20 years old, who played at a mid-major school where his career record was 28-39 despite playing zero ranked teams during his two years, and he averaged only 15 points per game. This guy has no postseason experience, he isn’t particularly big, and he has two first names.

Now open your eyes. Oh, right. Your eyes were never closed. Anyway, the point is this — you’re never going to believe this, but that guy I just described to you was Paul George in 2010. Pretty crazy, right?

What he is now: If there were a do-over of the 2010 draft, George could very likely be the no. 1 pick. He’s a household name among NBA fans and he might become a household name among all Americans in the next few years. He leads the Eastern Conference’s no. 3 seed in points, rebounds, and assists in this year’s playoffs, and he almost single-handedly made Pacers fans forget that Danny Granger — their leading scorer on last year’s team that gave the Miami Heat all they could handle in the conference semifinals — has been out for most of the season. Most important, though, Paul George is on the verge of surpassing Afroman as the most famous living man from Palmdale.

4. Lance Stephenson

What he was: At the risk of hyperbole, I’d guess that there have been a billion shooting guards in NCAA basketball history who averaged 12-plus points per game and 2.5-plus assists per game while shooting 21.9 percent or better from 3. Yet for some reason, after posting these pedestrian numbers in one season at Cincinnati, Stephenson declared for the 2010 NBA draft. Unsurprisingly, NBA teams weren’t falling all over each other for the chance to land a shooting guard who couldn’t shoot and who just finished leading his team to a second-round NIT loss. This explains why Stephenson — who also has a history of being a handful off the court — wasn’t drafted until the middle of the second round.

What he is now: As much as I like to make fun of the Pacers for drafting white guys way too early (Tyler Hansbrough, Miles Plumlee, Primoz Brezec, Austin Croshere, and more), they hit a home run in the 2010 draft. Not only did they land Paul George, but they also got a tough-nosed defender whose offense has improved drastically every year. Stephenson’s path to NBA success — which Jonathan Abrams highlighted earlier this month — has been so sudden that while watching Game 1 of Pacers-Hawks last week, one of my buddies who doesn’t follow the NBA said, “That’s not Lance Stephenson from Cincinnati, is it?” Hell, if it weren’t for George making the leap this season, Stephenson probably could’ve contended for the Most Improved Player Award, which is pretty remarkable considering not long ago it looked like he was destined to carry on the great Indiana Pacer tradition of getting arrested after fighting at a local strip club.

5. Danny Green

What he was: Here’s what I remember about Danny Green at North Carolina: He liked to dance before games tipped off and he momentarily became the most beloved player in college basketball when he put his genitalia in Greg Paulus’s face. He was good, sure. You don’t average 13 points a game for a national champion without being good. But throughout his four-year career at North Carolina, the words “I’m really worried about what Danny Green might do to us” were almost never uttered by fans of UNC opponents.

What he is now: In many ways, Green plays the same role on the Spurs as he did on North Carolina. He isn’t necessarily lighting up the NBA, and my guess is that when NBA coaches form their game plans against the Spurs they don’t focus on stopping Danny Green. But he is a starter who scores double digits for a team that figures to be the Western Conference favorite now that Russell Westbrook is injured. That’s something that can only be said by … well … every Spurs starter. Actually, I think that explains Green’s path to NBA success perfectly — he’s on the Spurs. If the Spurs were to sign Tim Tebow now that the Jets have released him, they’d probably turn him into an All-Star.

“Why Isn’t He Better?”

1. Daequan Cook

What he is now: Has been on four different teams in four seasons (which doesn’t include the team that drafted him, the 76ers, which traded him on draft night). He is on a league-minimum contract with the Bulls, he hasn’t sniffed the court in this year’s playoffs, and he may be out of the NBA in the next few years. Worst of all, he’s stuck on the bench for a team whose best player is currently Nate Robinson.

2. Tyler Hansbrough

What he was: He was the Tim Tebow of college basketball, for better and worse. Few players have the career résumé of Hansbrough, who accomplished pretty much everything there is to accomplish in college basketball. And just like Tebow, few people were as universally hated by fans of every other team in the sport. Whatever the case, Hansbrough played at one of the most storied programs in the country, took everyone’s best shot night in and night out, and more often than not was still the best player on a court that featured a handful of other future NBA players.

What he is now: The biggest difference between Tebow and Hansbrough is that Tebow plays the most scrutinized position in sports. Whereas Tebow’s work ethic and chest-pounding can’t mask the fact that he can’t throw a football, Hansbrough could conceivably do exactly what he did in college — be physical and “want it more” — and still be pretty successful in the NBA. Instead, he’s averaging just seven points and 4.6 rebounds for the Pacers this year and all signs point to him averaging no more than 25 minutes per game for the rest of his career.

Don’t get me wrong. I never expected Hansbrough to be a 20-points-and-10-rebounds-a-night guy in the pros.

But he’s got decent size and a good deal of skill, and his work ethic in college was the stuff of legend,5 so it is a bit surprising that Hansbrough doesn’t play a bigger role for the Pacers.

3. Terrence Williams

What he was: At Louisville, Williams was a do-everything point-forward and one of the best players in college basketball in 2009. Because Williams was a 6-foot-6 220-pounder with elite athleticism who averaged five assists and 8.6 rebounds while shooting 38.5 percent from the 3-point line, it wasn’t that crazy to think that he could conceivably play four positions in the NBA. He claims half of the four triple-doubles in Louisville basketball history, he was once on the cover of Sports Illustrated three weeks in a row, and — perhaps most important for Louisville fans even though it’s irrelevant to his pro career — he’s responsible for Peyton Siva coming to Louisville.

What he is now: After stints in the D-League and China, Williams is now playing for his fourth NBA team in as many years. Despite being picked 11th in the 2009 draft, he has started just nine games in his career, he hasn’t played in more than half the games in any single season since his rookie year, and he barely gets any burn for the Celtics even though the average player in Boston’s rotation is 35 years old and injured. It’s impossible for analysts to talk about him without using words like “potential,” “opportunity,” “hopefully,” or “finally.” He wasn’t that highly touted of a recruit coming out of high school, so maybe his pro career should be thought of as a relative success. It’s just hard not to imagine how good he could’ve been if everything had clicked like it did when he was at Louisville.

4. J.J. Redick

What he was: The 2006 national player of the year was one of the most exciting college basketball players in recent memory, even though he had a remarkably punchable face and he gelled his hair for games. He will forever be remembered as the all-time most hated Duke player not named Christian Laettner. That last bit alone tells you how good he was. Although Syracuse’s Eric Devendorf tried his hardest to prove otherwise, it’s borderline impossible to garner so much hatred without being really, really good. And make no mistake about it — even though his pro career has probably not been as great as he expected it to be, Redick is one of the best players in college basketball history. Every game during his senior season at Duke — when he averaged 26.8 points per game — was must-see TV, and his 41-point (and 0-assist) performance against Lamarcus Aldridge and Texas in the no. 1 vs. no. 2 game in December 2005 was a “Where were you when this happened?” type of moment. He’s a couple inches shorter than the ideal NBA shooting guard, he’s not all that athletic, and there were questions about his defensive capabilities when he came out of college, but Redick was arguably the best shooter in college basketball history and he could score against just about anybody.

What he is now: Of all the guys on my “Why isn’t he better?” list, Redick has had the best NBA career by far. He started in a Game 7 during the Magic’s 2009 run to the NBA Finals, and his scoring has improved every season in his career. He averaged 14 points a game this season, which is mildly impressive until you realize that he spent most of the season on the worst team in the NBA and that kind of offensive production was what was expected of him all along. Like with Hansbrough, I wasn’t naive enough to think that Redick was going to torch the league. But I did expect him to be in the top five of 3-point field goal percentage every year, and I expected him to be a starter, to average 20 points a game on a terrible team or 15 points a game on a title contender, and to dominate the 3-point contest year after year. Basically, I expected him to be a homeless man’s version of Stephen Curry. Instead, Redick has been pretty “meh,” as evidenced by the fact that this season he barely shot a better percentage from behind the 3-point line than Evan “The Villain” Turner. In case you don’t understand the magnitude of that, maybe this will help: The Villain is to shooting what a foot- long hot dog is to my understanding of analogies.

5. Adam Morrison

What he was: Everyone remembers Morrison as the guy with the dirty mustache and mop top who cried even before Gonzaga’s NCAA tournament loss against UCLA in 2006 was over. But I’ll always remember him as Larry Bird 2.0. Unless Ohio State wins a national championship in the next 50 years, 2006 will forever be my favorite college basketball season simply because of Morrison. Everything about him spoke to me — his long, unkempt hair; his gross mustache; the enormous T-shirt he wore beneath his jersey; his audacity to shoot from literally anywhere on the court at any time. If I could assemble my perfect basketball player, he would look and play exactly like Adam Morrison.

What he is now: Based on all that, it’s hard to believe that Morrison couldn’t even get off the bench for the Lakers in this year’s playoffs. I mean … what? Wait, are you serious? He’s not on the Lakers anymore? When did that happen? Wait. WAIT. HE’S OUT OF THE LEAGUE?! So he’s tearing it up in Europe then, right? WHAT? HE’S NOT EVEN PLAYING PROFESSIONAL BASKETBALL?!

Shabazz Muhammad (UCLA)

I saw Muhammad play Arizona in Tucson in January, and while watching him hang 23 on the sixth-ranked Wildcats en route to an 11-point win, two things stuck out to me: (1) He was by far the best player on the court, and (2) he seemed to be the only person affiliated with UCLA’s program who knew it. In the first five minutes, he hit a spot-up 3, curled off a screen for a midrange jumper, and scored off a post move. Every move he made was fluid and effortless. It was apparent that he saw the game at a different speed, and I was sure that he was about to go for 40. Then Ben Howland inexplicably took him out for a couple minutes, and when Muhammad checked back in it was as if his teammates forgot that he was just torching Arizona minutes earlier. He became visibly frustrated, began forcing plays, and even though more often than not he ended up making something good happen, he had clearly lost his rhythm. This sort of thing has happened in just about every game I’ve seen him play.

So here’s your takeaway: Although Muhammad is more than capable of doing so, don’t expect to see him carry the Bruins. That doesn’t mean he’s a player who won’t live up to the enormous hype he had coming out of high school once he makes it to the NBA. Sure, he’s probably not going to have a game in the tournament that will leave you thinking My team needs to do whatever it can to get this guy, but I can just about guarantee that he will flash his brilliance enough to make you realize that if he’s drafted into the right environment, there’s no telling how good Muhummad can be.

Marcus Smart (Oklahoma State)

Smart is the closest thing the college game has to LeBron James. Before you lose your mind and call me out for making this ludicrous comparison, let me clarify. I don’t think Smart will ever be close to as good as LeBron, but that’s not what I’m trying to say. Smart is like LeBron in that he’s the only guy I can think of in college basketball who can do everything there is to be done on a basketball court. If he focused on only one facet of the game every time he played, he could probably score 30 points, dish out 20 assists, pull down 15 rebounds, or get 10 steals. Instead, he does a little of everything, which is why he’s so highly regarded and has a chance to be the top overall pick.

At 6-foot-4 and just a 30 percent 3-point shooter, intuition would tell you that Smart will play point guard in the NBA. In truth, I’m not sure he has a natural position. He’s just a basketball player with a great feel for the game, surprising leadership abilities for a young player, and a willingness to do whatever he can to help his team win. Smart is unlike any player in college basketball and it’s hard to fully understand his game unless you watch him play, so if you’re looking for one must-watch guy in the tournament, make it him.

Anthony Bennett (UNLV)

Bennett is the interior version of Marcus Smart. He’s the most versatile player in college basketball from the standpoint that he shoots 38 percent from the 3-point line but also has the ability to dominate on the block. Actually, I got that backward — he’s a guy who dominates on the block but also has the ability to step out and knock down 3s. This is an important distinction. Far too often, tall guys who can shoot get mislabeled as

“versatile,” when in reality they’re just tall guys who can shoot.1 Bennett, though, is a legitimate post threat who can bang on the block with anybody, and oh, by the way, he can shoot from anywhere and put the ball on the deck, too. Assuming his jump shot continues to improve, he could potentially play three different positions in the NBA and create mismatches against just about anybody who guards him. This is why it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if he ends up being the best pro player from this rookie class.

I could go on all day about Bennett, but there’s nothing I can say about him that his performance at Cal last December can’t say about him 100 times better. Two things to look out for: the sequence that starts 23 seconds into the video, and the baseline drive and dunk with a minute left in the game.

Ben McLemore (Kansas)

I’m guessing my opinion doesn’t mean much to NBA GMs, but if any of them asked me who I think should be taken first overall in June’s draft, I’d say McLemore with no hesitation. He’s a 6-foot-5, long-armed, elite athlete with one of the prettiest jump shots in the game. In other words, he is the perfect prototypical NBA shooting guard. In what everyone agrees is a down year for college basketball from an individual talent perspective, McLemore is as close to a sure thing as you’re going to find. Oh, and he’s also responsible for my favorite college basketball GIF of all time.

What’s scary about McLemore is that I still don’t think he’s fully aware of how good he is. He’s had a few games this year — scoring 33 at home against Iowa State, including the banked-in 3 to send the game to overtime, and putting up 30 points and seven rebounds at home against 10th-ranked Kansas State — where he knew he was the man and he played like it. But McLemore also has a tendency to play passively. If every time he took the floor he had an “I’m better than all of you and I’m about to prove it” attitude, he could average 25 a game and be the most exciting college basketball player in recent memory. But because he plays for one of the best teams in the country and Kansas’s four other starters are seniors, he defers to them more than he probably should. This is why he needs to go to the NBA right now. He needs to be drafted first overall, spend all summer getting patted on the back and told how awesome he is, and let his ego swell. That way he’ll bust down the doors of the locker room on the first day of training camp and ask “Which one of you is the second-best player on this team?” before going on to a lengthy career of kicking ass and taking names.

Victor Oladipo (Indiana)

Oladipo is probably the most intriguing prospect in college basketball. At the start of the year, very few people outside the state of Indiana thought much of his NBA draft stock. Last season he showed that he was a great athlete who could attack the rim, play pretty strong defense, and make the occasional jaw-dropping play. But his game was way too unrefined for anyone to take him seriously as a legitimate first-round pick. He gambled on defense too much, he didn’t really have a jump shot, and he was a shaky ball handler.

Somehow, he fixed pretty much every flaw in his game during the offseason,2 and by the time Christmas rolled around, Oladipo had wedged himself into the national player of the year discussion. A month later, some were wondering if he would be the first overall pick in the draft. Since then, he’s cooled off a bit and will likely get drafted in the 7-to-10 range, but it’s still remarkable to think that he’s a lottery lock when a season ago his chances at an NBA career seemed nonexistent.

The biggest thing standing in Oladipo’s way right now and the one thing that could keep you from being impressed as you watch Indiana play in the tournament is Hoosiers coach Tom Crean. All season long, Crean has defied logic with his substitution patterns, and he has left Oladipo on the bench during crucial stretches of games. In the same way that Ben Howland doesn’t seem to appreciate what he has with Shabazz Muhammad, Crean apparently doesn’t realize how good Oladipo has gotten since last year, as evidenced by the fact that Oladipo is averaging only 1.4 more minutes and 0.5 more shot attempts per game than he did a season ago. Despite being underused on offense, however, Oladipo still plays some of the best defense in the country and has a knack for making huge plays on both ends of the court, which is why he’ll definitely be drafted in the lottery.

Otto Porter (Georgetown)

If you value a player based on how much worse his team would be without him, Otto Porter would be your pick for national player of the year. Georgetown was unranked at the start of the season, yet it ended up getting a 2-seed in the tournament, primarily because Porter has been unstoppable in a breakout year. He’s averaging 16 points and seven rebounds, which becomes even more impressive when you realize that Georgetown is notorious for playing low-possession games. He has added a 3-point shot to his game, he sees the floor really well for a big guy, and his 7-foot-1 wingspan helps him play great defense.

What makes Porter truly great, however, is that he’s fundamentally sound. This, of course, is just my way of saying that there’s no flash to his game. So many guys these days are all about shooting 3s or dunking, but Porter is a throwback in the sense that he understands that a shot-fake, one-dribble pull-up from 15 feet is worth just as many points as a nasty dunk. He’s got a great all-around offensive game, his defense might be even better, and for being just 19 years old he plays with a maturity and poise that’s rare, even in the NBA. This, along with his high basketball IQ, is why he promises to have a great professional career.

Deshaun Thomas (Ohio State)

If anyone in Thomas’s circle of family and friends has any sense, they’ll convince him to stay out of this year’s draft and to return for his senior season at Ohio State. But I’m including him here because my guess is that being the leading scorer in the country’s toughest conference will make him think he’s a better NBA prospect than he actually is. He’ll keep his name in the draft and he won’t get drafted until the second round because there’s really only one thing he can do well. In Thomas’s defense, however, that one thing is scoring, which makes him the best kind of one-dimensional player. Ohio State fans have joked for three years now about his refusal to pass, how he cares only about how many points he scores, and how he’s destined to have a 30-shot game before his time in Columbus is through. And although most of these jokes are derived from the truth and he can definitely take some pretty stupid shots from time to time, most Buckeyes fans don’t mind, because he has proven over the years that he’s capable of making anything. His defense is suspect, he’s not a great athlete, and he doesn’t always make the smartest decisions. But by God he knows how to put a basketball through a hoop.

Seth Curry (Duke)

Because his leg could supposedly fall off at any moment, I’m not sure if Seth Curry has a great chance to be drafted. Some team will probably take a chance on him, though, if for no other reason than his bloodline. Speaking of which, if for some reason you aren’t aware of who he is, informing you that he is Dell’s son and Steph’s brother should give you an idea of what his game is about. Spoiler alert: The answer is, in the words of Thad Matta, “shooting the piss out of the ball.” He’s the best shooter in the country3 and he’s in range as soon as he steps over half court, which is great for him because he likely won’t be able to do much else on an NBA court than knock down 3s.

Jeff Withey (Kansas)

I stopped caring about Jeff Withey’s blocks records the moment I found out that blocks weren’t an official statistic when Wilt Chamberlain played. But in case you’re into that sort of thing, you should know that Withey is the Big 12 leader in career blocks, he set the record last year for blocks in a single NCAA tournament, and he’s rumored to be the inspiration behind Cash Money Millionaires’ “Baller Blockin’.”

Anyway, the point is that Withey — who is 7 feet and has a volleyball background4 — is a shot-blocking machine. He’s such a defensive force that he has a good chance at getting drafted in the first round. Some Kansas fans would argue that Withey has a solid arsenal of post moves as well, and I partially agree. But he’ll never be much of an offensive threat in the NBA and almost all of his production will come on defense and as a rebounder, so I’m tagging him as a specialist.

Rodney Williams (Minnesota)

Williams has had a disappointing season. His points, rebounds, assists, steals, and shooting percentages have all dropped since last year. But I think he could end up being a steal for somebody — probably the Spurs, because it’s always the Spurs — because his length is tremendous enough to send Jay Bilas into an upside- related seizure, he’s a phenomenal athlete, and most importantly he won’t be coached by Tubby Smith in the NBA. When Williams is mentally engaged and not thinking about how his team is in the midst of yet another nosedive, his defense is second to none. He has all the physical tools you could ever want in an NBA player — the only things he lacks are confidence, a coach who can identify his strengths, and a little bit more polish on his game (nothing a great offseason can’t fix).

Jamaal Franklin (San Diego State)

Can I interest you in a 6-foot-5 shooting guard who averages 17 points, almost 10 rebounds, and three assists per game in one of the toughest conferences in college basketball? That’s right — a shooting guard in the best conference on the West Coast averages 9.5 rebounds. This brings up an obvious question: Why isn’t he a surefire first-rounder? Well, um, there is one small thing — Franklin is a shooting guard who kind of can’t shoot. Last year he shot 33 percent from the 3-point line, which is pretty mediocre for most but is great for him considering this season he’s shooting 27 percent. Despite this, I’m still saying Franklin will be a steal, especially since jump shots can be fixed (or at least greatly improved) in a few months.5 Plus, he does everything else so well that even if his jump shot never comes around, Franklin still should be able to contribute.

Nate Wolters (South Dakota State)

Truth be told, I don’t know all that much about Wolters. I’ve seen him play only a few times because his games are rarely on TV, and the games I did get to see were against awful competition. But I know this: He’s a 6-foot-4 point guard who averages 23 points a game and shoots 40 percent from behind the arc, and in December he scored 28 points as his Jackrabbits handed New Mexico its only home loss of the season. And I know that he scored 53 points in a six-point win in February, and then followed up that performance two days later by scoring 36 in a five-point loss. The man can fill it up. Thankfully, with his first tournament game coming against Michigan, he’ll be matched up with Trey Burke — who will likely win most of the national player of the year awards this season — so we’ll get to see how good Wolters really is. With that in mind, think of Wolters as less of a “player who will be a second-round steal” and more of a “player who maybe might kind of sort of potentially be a second-round steal just because he averages a million points, but I’m not entirely sure since I haven’t seen him play against many good teams.”

Cody Zeller (Indiana)

I’m sure Zeller will end up having a decent NBA career. He’s a skilled 7-footer who runs the floor like a guard and has looked like the best player in the country on a few occasions this year. But for a guy who washyped as the preseason national player of the year, a potential top overall pick, and the savior of Indiana basketball, I just can’t envision a scenario in which he lives up to these expectations. As Indiana fans know all too well, Zeller lets stronger big men push him around far too easily, he doesn’t play great defense other than hedging ball screens, and he just isn’t that aggressive. That last bit is the source of most of my doubts — Zeller lacks that “give me the damn ball and get out of my way because I’m about to drop-step dunk on someone and rip down the rim” kind of tenacity. That’s something you want to see from a big man. Again, I think he’ll be a decent NBA player. But considering he’ll likely be drafted in the top five and will therefore be expected to be a franchise-changer, “decent” won’t be good enough.

Michael Carter-Williams (Syracuse)

If there’s a projected lottery pick who could benefit most from returning for another year of NCAA ball, it’s Carter-Williams. Although he’s a sophomore, this is his first year receiving solid playing time for Syracuse, and unfortunately his inexperience has been apparent throughout the season. If Carter-Williams came back for his junior season, he’d be on my short list of national player of the year candidates. He’s so physically gifted that his flaws won’t be as obvious against college competition and he can continue to improve. But if he goes to the NBA, he’ll get drafted in the lottery and possibly be the starting point guard on opening night for a terrible team with high expectations for him. He’ll struggle in that role because his decision-making can be pretty bad and he can’t really shoot, and then the local media will start to pick him apart. His confidence will begin to erode and might get destroyed beyond repair, and Carter-Williams will end up being a career role guy. But as The Dude would say, that’s just, like, my opinion, man.

Glenn Robinson III (Michigan)

I’m not sure if Robinson will turn pro after this year, especially since John Beilein can promise that he’ll be the man at Michigan next year if he comes back. But if he does enter the draft, he’ll probably be a lottery pick. And based on what I’ve seen from him, he’ll probably struggle in the NBA. This isn’t to say that Robinson doesn’t have the potential to be great. It’s just that right now potential is all he’s got. Some NBA fans and GMs see that as a reason to take a chance on a guy and hope he develops, but I’ve always believed in drafting proven guys. If I’m spending millions on a player and planning to eventually hand the franchise over to him, I want to know what I’m getting. With Robinson, you’re not entirely sure what you’re going to get. He’s been inconsistent all year for the Wolverines, he doesn’t play great defense, and even when he does play well he doesn’t dominate like a lottery pick should. I wouldn’t blame him one bit for getting his NBA riches, but much like Carter-Williams, another year of college would do wonders for him and could end up making a big difference in his NBA career.

Khalif Wyatt (Temple)

I’ve signed up for the Khalif Wyatt Experience three times this season, and in each game I was blown away by how good he is. Actually, let me rephrase that — I was blown away by how good he is, given that he’s smaller than I am and probably less athletic, too. I tuned in to see him drop 33 on Syracuse in December, 26 on Kansas in January, and 34 on Saint Joe’s in February. During these three games, I must’ve heard commentators say “He has an old-man game” or “He has a lot of junk to his game” no fewer than 100 times. I want to make fun of them for harping on Wyatt’s playing style, but the reality is that it’s the first thing you notice and it sticks with you. Long after you watch him play, you’re still scratching your head trying to figureout how he just put up 25 points against bigger and better athletes. He’s a king of pump fakes, using angles to score, leaning into guys to create separation, and various other tricks that you’d find in any rec league in America. Because of his athletic deficiencies, he has virtually no chance of being drafted. But that doesn’t mean he’s not worth watching. Believe me when I say that if he brings his A-game, he’s one of the most fascinating players in the sport and he’s more than capable of single-handedly carrying Temple past North Carolina State and Indiana.