The Jamaica male players are doing relatively well in competitions.
In the Centro Basket Tournament 2010, the Team Jamaica Men’s Basketball won their second game against the USVI with the score 71-65 in favour of Jamaica.
Several excellent Jamaican players play with teams abroad. The achievements of these exceptional players bring pride to their home country. Some of these players include Samardo Samuels of the Cleveland Cavaliersand Patrick Aloysius Ewing.
Samardo Samuels
He is a budding Power Forward and Center in the Cleveland Cavaliers. He was born on January 9, 1989. This young Jamaican player became the 2008 high school player of the year by USA Today. His career blossomed during his high school years in Saint Benedict’s Preparatory School based in Newark, New Jersey, US where he attended.
There, he was ranked as one of the bests in the nation: 9th place by Rivals.com, and 2nd place by Scout.com. Samuels and Thompson led St. Benedict’s Preparatory to victory with a 24-1 record in 2007–2008 Season.USA Today ranked St. Benedict as #2 in the nation by the end of that season.Samuels also played in the Jordan Brand Classic and McDonald’s All-American Game.He chose to attend University of Louisville for college.
He led his team in Louisville (2009-2010) thru gaining scores and rebound. He chose to enter the 2010 NBA Draft over continuing his final two years in college.
In 2010, Samuels went to NBA undrafted however; he played for the Chicago Bulls in the NBA Summer League of that same year. He signed a 3-year $2.3M USD contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers on August 17, 2010. His first game with the Cavaliers was on October 29 against the Toronto Raptors and only scored 7 points. He was then sent to the Erie BayHawks (Cavalier’s affiliate in NBA Development League) on December 27. He was recalled by the Cav’s on January 1 after playing two games in the NBA Development League.
Patrick Ewing
Patrick Ewing is born on August 5, 1962 in Kingston, Jamaica. He attended college in Georgetown. He was drafted by New York Nicks in 1985 and played with the team as its Center until 2002. During this time, he almost always led the Nicks to victory. He soon played with the Supersonics in 2000 to 2001 and played with Orlando Magic for a year before he decided to retire in 2002. At present, he is the assistant coach of Orlando Magic.
Because of his exceptional skill and talent in basketball, he was proclaimed by the ESPN as the sixteenth greatest players of all time. He also Olympic gold medals were gained by the US Men’s National Basketball in 1984 and 1994 when he played with the team.
This basketball superstar was selected to be one of the 50 Greatest Basketball Players of All Time in 1996. In April 7, 2008, he was nominated to be National Basketball Hall of Fame in Springfield, Massachusetts and received the Hall of Fame award in September 5th of that same year with Hakeem Olajuwon, a former Rockets center and Pat Riley a former NBA coach.