FanHouse Melvin Ely

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Long before Ron Artest was the NBA star he is today, he caught the attention of college scouts. In this FanHouse exclusive, we hear how he was described as a high school player.

Check out the video after the jump.

There isn't one member of the Phoenix Suns who would tell you that the officiating was the reason that they dropped their home opener to the New Orleans Hornets. And it wasn't. Phoenix started off in a mentally sluggish state, turning the ball over and missing shots, while New Orleans hit on their first six shot attempts, and jumped out to an immediate 14-2 lead. The Hornets took control from the opening tip and hit some big shots down the stretch to make sure the Suns didn't come all the way back. But the officiating, especially in the second quarter, was so brutal that it merits its own discussion.

The officials didn't start off unfairly making calls against the Suns; early on, Phoenix was simply committing a lot of fouls. The Suns were called for five team fouls in the first two minutes of the period, but a couple of those were iffy at best, and the team (along with the fans) were starting to get restless. Melvin Ely of the Hornets was subsequently called for traveling when all he did was pivot. This was a blatant (albeit brief) attempt by the officials to try to even things out with a make-up call, but the attempt at fairness would be very short-lived.

The NBA named their Executive of the Year today, and not surprisingly, the prize went to the Celtics' Danny Ainge. The Celtics were able to go from one of the worst teams in the league a season ago to the team with the most regular season wins this year, a feat that's worth recognizing to some extent. But as our headline states (sentiment courtesy of Matt Moore), Ainge was really more lucky in getting Garnett (by way of his relationship with Kevin McHale) than he was skillful in pulling off any amazing deal.

The alternatives to Ainge though aren't really that exciting either. The Lakers' Mitch Kupchak finished second, largely because he didn't acquiesce to Kobe's off-season trade demands, and because he was able to get Pau Gasol from Memphis for Kwame Brown. As great as that deal was though, Mitch wouldn't have even pursued it had Andrew Bynum not gone down with a knee injury. Still, Kupchak is the one who put together this Laker roster over several seasons, and now that it's all come together, he seems like the logical choice.

One final note on this award, and that's the fact that inexplicably, third place went to Hornets' GM Jeff Bower. Now, either the people who vote for this award are completely lazy, or they simply don't know what they're talking about. The only difference between this year's Hornets roster and the one from last season is the addition of Morris Peterson and Melvin Ely. So those guys are the reason NOLA has the Spurs down 3-2? I don't think so. Plus, Bower didn't even draft Chris Paul or Davd West, so how he can receive so much credit for the team's success this season is beyond me.

Lost in all the hoopla over the Hornets going into San Antonio and crushing the Spurs on Saturday was the fact that current Hornet Melvin Ely received a championship ring for being a member of the 2007 Spurs. Um, what?

Now I follow the NBA about as closely as anyone around here, but I honestly had no idea that Ely was on the Spurs' roster last year. Turns out he was traded from the Bobcats right around the All-Star break, and appeared in a whopping six games for the 2007 champs, thus (barely) earning himself the league's most coveted piece of jewelry.

Not to rain on Melvin's mini-parade here, but shouldn't players have to either be with the team the entire season, or contribute at least something on the court to receive a ring? Delving a little further into Ely's stats with the Spurs, we see that he played a total of 64 minutes, shot 30% from the field, 58% from the free throw line, and averaged two personal fouls in those limited minutes. I don't think it's a stretch to say the Spurs might have been better off had Ely never stepped foot on the court wearing one of their uniforms.

Now of course there's the other side of the argument, which says that hey, everyone who's a part of the team deserves a ring no matter what. And who knows, maybe Ely helped the team by being a locker room leader, or by pushing Tim Duncan really hard in practice every day to force him to take his game to another level. I'm going to choose to believe the more likely scenario though that none of that actually happened, and that Melvin Ely was simply in the right place at the right time. Good for him ... I guess.

In 2003, Quentin Richardson appeared on The Jimmy Kimmel Show. He did so mostly to introduce a feature pitting his Benz against the rest of the team's fly rides. Cherokee Parks is "old, but has style," Corey Maggette matter-of-factly explains his BMW's door suction, and Melvin Ely is cleaning out trash at the last minute. Makes you kind of miss the days when Richardson mattered, and when the Clippers were kind of awesome.