BY DARRELL MOODY
Appeal Sports Writer
As expected, Nevada's JaVale McGee went in the first round of Thursday's NBA Draft. McGee was selected No. 18 by the Washington Wizards. McGee is the fourth Nevada player to be selected in the Trent Johnson and Mark Fox eras in Reno. He follows in the footsteps of Kirk Snyder, Nick Fazekas and Ramon Sessions. What I thought was funny is that McGee never worked out for the Wizards, though I did see him going to the Wizards on a couple of different draft Web sites. If the season started tomorrow, I think McGee would be on the Wizards' NBA D-League team. I don't think he's strong enough right now to defend at the NBA level. He still has several months before the season starts and it will be interesting to watch his progress. He's expected to play for the Wizards' summer squad in Las Vegas next month.
Physically, McGee may be ready in a few months, but I doubt that he will be ready from a maturity point of view. Hopefully when he gets called for a foul in the NBA, he won't scrunch his face up like a 3-year-old, who just got his favorite toy taken away, or stare in disbelief at the official. Hopefully the Wizards' veterans will take him under their collective wing and shape him up. Another thing he has to learn is that he's not a 3-point shooter. The Wizards don't need him to score the deep ball. They need him to defend, rebound and block shots.
- The recent fiasco(s) with Gov. Jim Gibbons and his reaction to media coverage of his personal life reminds me of a situation that happened several years ago involving Boise State quarterback Ryan Dinwiddie. The Broncos were nationally ranked at the time, and Dinwiddie, the starting quarterback, was found passed out in his car with the keys still in the ignition. He was taken to task by the local media in Boise. His father, who was an assistant coach at his son's old high school, Elk Grove, was steamed at the Boise writers. I don't remember my exact words to him, but in essence I told Dinwiddie's dad that the media was just doing its job and that as a starting quarterback for a nationally ranked football team, he has to be above reproach because all eyes are going to be on him in and out of uniform. I had to laugh when Gibbons, in response to an editorial by the Elko Daily Free Press earlier this year, said "I strongly believe that even public officials deserve a certain measure of privacy." Get real Mr. Governor. You are the top-ranked official in the state, and you are going to be under the microscope every second of every day whether you like it or not. Maybe you should never have run for high public office if you really feel that way about having a private life. An average Joe Schmoe, who isn't divorced yet, can go out in public with other women and nobody will think anything of it. As a governor, it's a huge no-no. Either Gibbons has no PR people that he listens to, or he just doesn't care.
- Can you imagine how boring the PGA Tour will be with Tiger Woods out of action for the rest of the season? Who do you root for? After Tiger and Phil Mickelson, everybody else is about the same. Most of the golfers are very bland, at least in terms of their actions on the course and their quotes to the media. None have the charisma of Tiger. Like him or not, he is the face of the PGA and the reason golf gets any ratings at all.
- Reindeer, one of the top bulls in the world, didn't get an opportunity to show his stuff at the Reno Rodeo, which concluded its 89th year Saturday at the Reno Livestock Events Center. Howdy Cloud turned out when he drew Reindeer in the Xtreme Bulls event, and then another rider was a no-show Thursday after being stepped on at the rodeo in Pecos, Texas.
- Other than a some promos on television, I've read hardly anything on the upcoming Summer Olympics in Beijing. I suspect much of that will change this weekend and next when the Olympic Track & Field Trials are staged in Oregon. I don't know about any of you readers, but I love the Olympics. It takes an act of Congress to get me away from the television set when the Olympics are on.
- Contact Darrell Moody at dmoody@nevadaappeal.com, or by calling (775) 881-1281