At the time, the dubious honor went somewhat under the radar, unless, of course, you were a Temple fan and/or a Lavoy believer from the start.
Back in August, ESPN's TrueHoop blog ranked the 500 best players in the NBA. As you may remember, or have heard by now, Sixers forward Lavoy Allen, who had been taken 50th overall in last year's draft, was ranked dead-last. No. 500.
Fast-forward nine months and Allen has become on a vital cog on a team one win away from reaching its first Eastern Conference Final in 11 years. As Lavoy's playing-time and contributions have increased over the course of the season, the list has regained a second life for those who wish to point out how wrong those rankings were.
Well, sensing he and his usually astute crew mucked this one up, the WWL's Henry Abbott recently paid Lavoy a visit to apologize. In his typical fashion, Lavoy played it off like it was nothing, just another part of having one of those "Lavoy Allen days" his coach wants so badly.
You can read the whole conversation here, though, in short, Allen says he grateful to have been last on the list because it garnered him more attention than if were, say, "No. 482." Rather than accepting an apology, Allen thanked Abbott for doing him a favor and getting his name out there.
While we're sitting here apologizing to Lavoy, I used to wonder during his college career if and where he might fit in the NBA. The one thought I kept coming back to was him locked in the post with Kevin Garnett. I would shake my head and think: "well, that would never end well." I also wrote on this site over a year ago that the most disappointing part of the end of his career at Temple was that I wouldn't be able to watch him reach his potential "when and where I could see it."
Now he's playing for the Sixers, D'ing up Garnett in this team's biggest playoff series in over a decade and doing a helluva job in the process.
Anyone else have anything they wanna get off their chest before tonight's Game 7?
>>> Sorry, Lavoy [ESPN TrueHoop]
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