In addition to a player dropping 30+ points on an opponent or a rim rattling dunk in a defender’s face, ankle breaking crossovers and having ball-on-a-string handles are easily the most exciting plays in basketball.
In years past, NBA players like Allen Iverson, Jason Williams, and streetball legend Rafer “Skip To My Lou” Alston have made a pretty good living breaking ankles and embarrassing opponents on the highest level of competition in part because of their insane ballhandling skills.
In today’s NBA, superstars like reigning 2015 MVP Stephen Curry, Kyrie Irving, John Wall, and former 6th Man of the Year Jamal Crawford seem to make SportsCenter for another eye-popping dribble move or behind the back pass that stymies the defense.
When it comes to up-and-coming high school players, perhaps no one has better handles than 14 year old Johnathan McGriff, who is just a freshman at Bishop McNamara HS in Maryland, but already has And1 and BallUp mixtape level skills in a 5’8 frame.
The rising frosh is already a wizard with the rock and has greatly improved his court vision to recently dominate the CP3 Rising Stars Camp, making him a player to watch going forward.
The main knock on McGriff is that he does way too much dribbling without a purpose and tends to focus on the highlight reel play rather than the necessary one but the skills he possess at such a young age are rarely able to be taught, enabling him to show off his video game-like handles on a game-by-game basis in the state of Maryland.
McGriff has played for the same legendary AAU programs in the past as former Duke standout Quinn Cook, as many are hoping he can make a similar impact in college as the recently graduated NCAA Champion.
Rafer Alston once propelled his arsenal of mind bending ball handling tricks and skills into an 11 year NBA career, can McGriff do the same?
Allen Moll has been a lifelong NBA and NCAA College Basketball fan who watches and studies games religiously, and coaches youth basketball in his native Lehigh Valley region of Pennsylvania. Allen has also provided content to Bleacherreport.com, Upperdeckblog.com, Cleveland.com, CSN Philly.com, Buckets Magazine, Balltribe.com, in addition to being a tenured NBA and NCAA columnist for TheHoopDoctors.com.
