Here’s to hoping BiE can create something viral here … anything to help one of the great untold individual stories of European basketball.
Currently playing his trade in Slovakia, longtime Dallas area resident/former North Texas Mean Greener Adam McCoy is not only statistically crushing the domestic league there, he’s also seemingly in possession the same anti-gravity power Blake Griffin deploys on a nightly basis across the ocean.
After capturing local imaginations in a high-school career with Arlington Oakridge, the 6’3” swingman first played university ball with Mesa Community College; in Arizona, McCoy became a top-15 junior college player, making the NJCAA Region I second team after going for 18.4 points, 4.0 rebounds and 1.3 steals per game in his sophomore year.
Transferring to North Texas University, McCoy excited local interest but the homer never received adequate playing time to blow up – and little indication that he could go off like he is in 2010-11 – averaging just about 12 minutes per game in two seasons. The 43% three-point shooting in his senior year may have raised a few eyebrows, but at 8.7 points and just 0.5 steals per game, McCoy ultimately was not the help some imagined he might be.
Showing at least marginal interest in the sharpshooter with kangaroo hops, McCoy was taken with the final pick of the 7th round in the 2010 NBA D-League draft by the Tulsa 66ers. On November 19, however, McCoy was cut loose along with four others from that team and was not picked up by any North American team thereafter.
(Indeed, as far as BiE can tell, the man dropped completely of the face of the basketball earth thereafter; if any reader can tell me what happened to the guy for the next eight months, please inform.)
But then 2010-11. McCoy has found new life with Slovakia Extraliga squad BK Iskra Svit. (And yes, those of you who’ve clicked the link at right; that’s the official website. Click all you want, you’re not going anywhere.) In fact, “new life” is a serious understatement as McCoy is playing a higher level of ball – in both senses – than he ever has before.
Statistically, McCoy’s line for Svit is impressive enough: His per-game marks through 26 games include a league- (and perhaps Continent-) leading 26.4 points on 49.3% overall shooting including 39.0% on threes and 78.9% from the stripe; 4.5 rebounds; and 2.2 stocks (steals plus blocks, stat courtesy Bill Simmons) in 36.2 minutes.
But forget the numbers, let’s go the ‘Tube, where some enthusiastic account-holders have been uploading highlight clip after highlight clip of the man’s aerial assaults. Go ahead and start with this excellent “Top 10 Dunks” reel;
Two questions: Has McCoy posterized every other player in Slovakia yet? And doesn’t it appear that he’s actually restraining himself from actually getting even higher? Perhaps like Griffin, McCoy secretly fears escaping the Earth’s gravity field altogether … but, hey, don’t take BiE’s word for it. More video evidence follows.
And more…
Unfortunately for his short-term future, McCoy appears to be saddled with a Los Angeles Clippers-like squad in Svit, which at 11-15 sits in eighth place on the 10-team Slovakia Extraliga table.
