Hawaii Basketball

You’ve seen girls dunk before (Lisa Leslie, Michelle Snow, Candace Parker)…. but not like this. At 6-8 with a 86″ wingspan, Brittney Griner, a junior center at Nimitz High School in Houston, Texas, started a frenzy when a local news station posted a clip of her on YouTube throwing down various dunks during practice over a year ago. Not much has changed since…

Griner has already been featured on SportsCenter on more than one occasion and nearly recorded a quadruple-double when she scored 29 points, grabbed 14 rebounds, blocked 11 shots and dished out 9 assists in a league game in mid-February. She has verbally committed to play at Baylor University.

Or tries to… Check out TNT commentator, and former 1990 NBA Slam Dunk Runner-up, Kenny Smith as he attempts to jump over an Aston Martin.

“The Converse Weapon… The #1 Weapon in the NBA.” Commercials (and hip-hop) have come a long way… Haha. If NIKE remade this commercial (since they now own Converse), who do you think would replace Magic, Isiah, McHale, Aguirre, King and Bird?

Named the 2005 OIA West Player-of-the-Year after his senior season at Waianae High School, Xiro Naovalath, a Minnesota native, is now the #1 Asian Baller in the country according to AsianBallers.net.

After a one year stint in Hawaii, Naovalath returned to Minnesota and went on to attend Minneapolis Community College where he was named to the JuCo All-American 2nd Team (DIII) in 2006-07. He then transferred to Missouri Western State University (NCAA DII) for his sophomore year but left the team before the start of the season in November of 2007.

During his senior year at Waianae, Naovalath averaged just over 21 points per game with highs of 40 (Nanakuli), 32 (Radford) and 31 (Kapolei).

Special Note: Men’s league superstar John Lane is ranked #11 on AsianBallers.net and his team “The Chosen Few” is considered the top asian basketball team in the country.

Video of presidential candidate Barack Obama playing for Punahou in the 1979 State Championship game against Moanalua. The Buffanblu won 60-28.

Check out this new promo of Kobe jumping over a moving Aston Martin in the soon-to-be-released Nike Hyperdunk, touted as the lightest and strongest basketball shoe ever.

The Hyperdunk weighs in at just 13.0 ounces and features two new Nike technologies — Flywire, extremely lightweight and strong footwear construction, and Lunarlite, an extremely lightweight foam cushioning system.

Features 5-11 Iolani standout Kanoe Winchester ‘89 (00:29 seconds, blue shirt) and eventual champion Chris Mills (University of Arizona; Cleveland Cavaliers).

The Iolani Classic used to be televised back then. You can actually hear Jim Leahey’s voice on the intro. (Thanks, Brandon)

2008 Hawaii State Player-of-the-Year Shawna-Lei Kuehu is featured in the May 2008 issue of Slam Magazine. (Regional Covers - Eric Gordon, Derrick Rose, Michael Beasley; Released in March)

Many of you have seen the highlights of Love at the UCLA shootaround hitting shots from the opposite end line… Here’s an old highlight of Love throwing a full-court alley-oop to Beasley who 360s it. Video taken while the two were practicing for the Elite 24 HS All-Star Game at Rucker Park.

Okay, this might be a stretch for Hawaii Hoops, but Michelle Wie is from “Hawaii” and Robin Lopez does play “Hoops” so… close enough.

StanfordSecrets.com caught the pair hanging out together at the Athlete Date Auction a few weeks ago.

Jumping ahead a bit, but, man, can you imagine their kids?…

The fact that he only plays basketball professionally is disappointing…

Steve Nash, the two-time NBA MVP, could be doing so much more. Besides being a decent tennis player and skateboarder, the guy is apparently good enough in soccer to play for the Canadian National Team.

On top of that, he’s also an avid filmmaker. Last summer, Nash wrote, pitched and produced this commercial for Nike on a $30K budget… It’s legit!