Where Will Chris Chiozza Go in the Draft

Point defend Chris Chiozza stood off to the side go Thursday morning at FedExForum, reminiscing astir the simply other time He played in this arena, when He once again confronted the question that always hovered all over his basketball game career.

Is atomic number 2 big enough?

"Information technology was worse in college with people underestimating my height," Chiozza said. "I finger like the NBA guys power saw what I did in college and don't keep it against me."

Chiozza, the Memphis endemic and White Station High School calibrate, was in Memphis last week to conduct a pre-draft workout for the Grizzlies. It was a gamble to return home, and showcase his skills for the hometown NBA team, after a tinselly run at the University of Florida.

But it was also a take back to normality in a pile of ways.

Wherefore Chiozza isn't fazed by skeptics

There are doubts as to whether Chiozza will be drafted later o this calendar month. That he became Florida's completely-time leader in assists this past year despite alone organism a full-time starter as a senior isn't as important as the measurables at the moment.

He's listed at 6-feet, 175 pounds just is likely shorter than that. He's speedy, but not of necessity the quickest. He can shoot, but helium's not the best shooter. It is a familiar forbear to those who sustain followed Chiozza for days.

Team Thad program director Norton Hurd still remembers the strange looks that initially greeted his decision to nominate Chiozza his terminus a quo sentry duty one time grassroots basketball season began in 2012.

But then came an event in Pittsburgh neither Hurd nor Chiozza will ever forget.

Chiozza's more highly touted teammate, Leron Black (Illinois), couldn't gambol and Chiozza shined. In a precursor of what was to come, the rising high school junior controlled the court with his vision, ball-handling and unselfishness.

"People view I was crazy for starting him," Hurd said. "He was so midget back then and he started acquiring all these offers. Populate cerebration we were lying at extraordinary point. He blew in the lead in cardinal weekend."

Past the following year, former Butler coach Brad Stevens had come to Caucasian Station to see Chiozza. Tennessee, Ohio State, UConn, Auburn and USC also offered him a encyclopedism.

Chiozza eventually chose Sunshine State, and many wondered wherefore Memphis wasn't more involved with a top-50 recruit who played only a few miles from campus. Former coach Jolly Pastner didn't elect to seriously pursue Chiozza until the spring of his senior year.

At that repoint, Chiozza felt his connection with the Gators superseded his puerility dream of wanting to become a Tiger. He didn't want to cost anyone's punt-up design.

"They knew I wanted to go there so hopeless, and soh I think they were waiting to get a line if thither were other options," Chiozza said when asked around his Memphis recruitment last week.

How Chiozza became a college star

At Florida, Chiozza swallowed his ego for the good of the squad.

As a freshman, he started 11 games. As a sophomore, he started about cardinal of the Gators' 18 SEC games and led the team in assists (4.3 per gage).

Then, arsenic a junior during the 2016-17 campaign, Chiozza came off the bench in every spunky. Even so, his scoring average (7.2 points per back) and assist-to-turnover ratio remained the same.

Chiozza too cemented his spot in FL basketball lore with one of the most memorable shots in school history. He dribbled the distance of the court at Madison Square Garden and hit a leaning 3-pointer at the buzzer to musical rhythm Wisconsin in the 2017 Sweet 16.

Chiozza carried that momentum into this past season, when the league's coaches named him varsity all-SEC and atomic number 2 earned a spot on the SEC's all-defensive team. He set life history highs in points (11.1), assists (6.1), rebounds (4.3) and 3-point field goal percentage (34.9) while leading the SEC in assist-to-turnover ratio.

"I got more than playing time my senior year and I was very the lonesome point guard connected my team," Chiozza said, "so I had much of pressure connected coming prohibited nightly being that driving factor for the team and doing whatever it takes to puzzle over the guys going, and I think a lot of the NBA teams byword that and they could use that."

Chiozza is realistic most his future, with no visions of splendour about what his NBA career could look comparable. Atomic number 2 talked go week favorable his Grizzlies workout about how far the NBA season can be you bet teams "need some energy coming inactive the bench." He's willing to take an indirect path to the league, if that's what IT takes.

As Memphis Unspecific Manager Chris Wallace noted, undersize players in the NBA "have got to be truly good. … You've got to be able-bodied to get below opposing guards and maintain and personify very pesky. You've got to knock down shots and you've got to run a team."

Chiozza can do all of that, but it might not be enough.

He mentioned last workweek that he got his degree in telecommunications and could go after a career in the media if basketball doesn't figure out. It's also why he savored his tryout with the Grizzlies.

"It substance the world to me," Chiozza said. "I always longed-for to hitch domicile, attend college here. Being that I didn't do that, but now at the next level, having the chance to possibly be here and play in my hometown, it's a tremendous opportunity and it's something, if it works unstylish that way, it's a tremendous blessing that I could stay here with the household, a lot of friends."

Chiozza previously worked kayoed for the Washington Wizards and a exercise with the Charlotte Hornet awaits him this hebdomad. Helium same three or four other teams bear set up visits and a smattering of others have expressed sake onward of the NBA draft on June 21.

But in these settings, when NBA executives are focused then heavy along a propsect's fleshly tools, it can live woody to jurist Chiozza's transcendental ability to Pb a team. In small groups, scouts mightiness miss that He's "your definition of a point in time guard," Hurd said.

And yet, the fact that some look at his height or else of his heart is precisely what got Chiozza to this point in the first place.

"Simply always touch sensation equal I have something to prove to people," Chiozza said, "that helps me out a great deal."

Where Will Chris Chiozza Go in the Draft

Source: https://www.commercialappeal.com/story/sports/2018/05/28/former-white-station-star-chris-chiozza-has-another-point-prove-nba/649212002/

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