It may be only August, and official practices for the Long Beach State basketball team don\u2019t begin for another two months, let alone games in November.<\/p>\n
But we haven\u2019t been able to stop writing about the 49ers this offseason, particularly due to the sudden summer celebrity of Casper Ware. The sub-6\u2019 point guard has capped off his conference Player of the Year season in 2010-11 with outstanding play in local summer leagues that has earned him stamps of approval from experts and acknowledgment from pro players.<\/p>\n
On Monday night, Ware cashed in some of that new notoriety to recruit a handful of NBA stars to play in the nightly pickup games in the Walter Pyramid.<\/p>\n
Young guns like James Harden (Thunder<\/em>), Demar DeRozan (Raptors<\/em>) and 2010-11 Rookie of the Year John Wall (Wizards<\/em>) took to a jam-packed floor that ran five games at a time \u2013 filled to capacity by players who heard that NBA stars were descending on their nightly run.<\/p>\n Ware played the part of floor general, organizing the teams and game assignments while doing everything in his power to keep his squad on the main winner\u2019s court. That includes hustling and vocal team defense (which are normally not a part of pickup games) as well as trash talk and a little flexibility with the rules (which most certainly are). It was all in effort to remain on the main court and run with the pros as much as possible.<\/p>\n Ware teamed up with his younger brother, Ervin, as well as 49er teammates Larry Anderson, Eugene Phelps and new addition Dan Jennings, a 6-foot-9 cinderblock who showed exciting glimpses of the ability that brought him to the Beach. In the first four games, this team won three times, including once over Wall and DeRozan\u2019s squad, as Ware hit a game-winning fadeaway jumper over Wall.<\/p>\n They would fall to Team Harden shortly after, as the Thunder sixth man looked to be having more fun than anyone else on the night. The local product has built a reputation in the League as a no-nonsense scorer and a bullish physical presence, but on Monday he teased and taunted and smiled as much as possible on his way to scoring over anyone and everyone.<\/p>\n DeRozan showed off his rapidly-improving range with several long jumpers, and took to the skies time and again for dunks and blocked shots. Wall was a blur with the ball, getting to the basket whenever he wanted and punctuating one fast break with a rim-rattling left-handed dunk from just inside the free-throw line. The games ran for hours with no sign of slowing down, as everyone was clearly eager to work their way to the main court for a shot at facing an NBA star. But if they didn\u2019t get their chance last night, the next opportunity may come soon enough. With the looming 2011-12 season lockout, pro players have been popping up on courts all over the country. Whether it was LeBron James teaming up with Ware<\/a> last week in the Drew League or Kevin Durant dropping 66 points<\/a> at famed Rucker Park last night, NBA players are simply looking for runs. Kobe Bryant has flirted with the idea of playing in Turkey this year and other players are following suit. This morning, that looks like the smart move as the NBA filed federal suit<\/a> against the NBA Players Association that could set back negotiations for weeks or even months. <\/p>\n It\u2019s a thundering blow to the heart of any basketball fan eagerly awaiting the new season, but in some odd way, could it be a blessing in disguise? At this point, you never know where your favorite NBA star will pop up. It could be the Pyramid, or the hoop in your driveway if this lockout continues to drag on.<\/p>\n All we know for sure is that the Long Beach State 49ers seem to be getting plenty of professional runs in during this offseason. We’ll have photos from Monday night’s action on the site tomorrow.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" James Harden, Demar DeRozan and 2010-11 Rookie of the Year John Wall took to a jam-packed Long Beach State floor on Monday night, running the courts with Long Beach State players and awed onlookers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sports","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=690"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The night also saw the return of old 49er favorites like recent graduates Donovan Morris, Brandon Nevens and Greg Plater, as well as new ones like incoming freshman point guard Mike Caffey.<\/p>\n