KAEO Tony Gaffney

[MikeUMA]

Tony has been waived by Memphis.
http://www.nba.com/grizzlies/news/grizz ... ers-131026

[TruBluMaroon]

NBA allows 15 on a roster (active & inactive) THRIFTY Grizzlies only carry 13! Saw the most pre-season action of the four waived.

[SignMan]

Former Lakers camp invitee Tony Gaffney recalls the time he was torn to bits by Kobe Bryant in practice
http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-ball- ... 43433.html

[MassMan06]

Beat me to it!

[UMass87]

Wow...kinda makes me like Kobe just a little bit.

[Chris20]

Gaffney is an all-time favorite of mine. Top 5 for sure.

[uz2b-len]

Really fun read. A guy who walked on at UMass is having a great basketball experience. I mean, who would have predicted he'd have this personal experience of one of the all time greats?

[CarriageEstates22]

By far the most grounded and personable basketball player I came across during my time at UMass.

[Refuse2Lose83]

Another good article, it was linked in the above article:

http://www.basketballinsiders.com/ex-l- ... be-bryant/

[DKera]

Gaffney is an all-time favorite of mine. Top 5 for sure.

Definitely agree with this...maybe even top 3. As a freshman at UMass in '08-'09 during Gaffney's dominant senior season, he really was the only bright spot in an otherwise abysmal season.

I'll always remember watching the midnight blowout loss to Memphis in my dorm. We lost by 20+ but Gaffney was great and Cal talked afterwards about how he was the best player on the floor.

Definitely a good guy and an extremely hard worker, someone that is really easy to root for.

[MikeUMA]

Top 5? Top 3? Wow, you guys must be young.

No disrespect to Tony. He had a great senior season. I'm just surprised that he'd be so high on people's favorites lists.

[Chris20]

I'm young compared to many here. But probably old next to many more. Started watching in late 80's, jumping on the excitement wagon with the rest of the world.

And yes, he is way up there for me. His game and attitude were awesome. I tend to really like players that play like he did, 100% at all times. Harper Williams, Roe, Lasme, Dingle, Charlton Clarke, Rhymer.....Get after it, and you get on my list!

[MikeUMA]

THREAD UPDATE
I've combined several threads about Tony into one. The two major ones were during his time here, and after. Because of the merge, there may be some instances where conversation seems to get out of sequence.

[MikeUMA]

Why are we offering scholarships to scrubs?

Theres a reason why he couldn't hack it at BU. Jeez.

Looks like Tony locked this into his memory for motivation...
https://twitter.com/tonyjgaffney/status ... 1878992896

Tony was one of the guys I built a pretty detailed page for:
http://umasshoops.com/wiki/doku.php?id=gaffney_tony

He exploded in production between his junior and senior seasons, from 3.2 ppg and 4.8 rpg to 11.5 ppg and 10.2 rpg. However, it wasn't quite enough in the eyes of the A-10. The Most Improved Player award that year went to Duquesne's Aaron Jackson, who upped his scoring numbers from 9.0 to 19.3 ppg.
http://www.goduquesne.com/sports/m-bask ... 10275.html

Tony still took home A-10 honors: Defensive POY and Second Team.

So, with the benefit of hindsight, care to update your statement, TheChamp?

[uz2b-len]

I remember someone else writing that Tony was going to be a pleasant surprise. So there's that. Turns out "pleasant surprise" was an understatement. Remember Cal saying Tony was the best player on the floor when he gave DK a shot at Kentucky?