Johnson gets a title

Arkstfan · March 27, 2005

Shawnson Johnson scored 7 points and had 17 rebounds as the Arkansas Rimrockers won their first and last ABA title in front of over 14,000 at Alltel Arena.

Larry Crain, the owner of the Rimrockers had grown frustrated with the ABA where teams folded in mid-season or refused to play road games because they couldn't afford the costs. Nashville refused to participate in the playoffs because they had lose a bunch of their roster to other leagues. Utah, the team Arkansas would have had the most difficult time playing pulled out midway through the playoffs because of the higher pay for officials and cost of paying the players.

Crain tried to get the ABA to reorganize, because the league had some teams that were barely semi-pro, changing schedules and venues (sometimes cities) in mid-season and others run like high minor league. He wanted to divide the league into the regular league and a "superleague" of 12 teams where the league controlled scheduling, and venues and teams posted a letter of credit to insure they completed the season. The ABA rejected the proposal.

So Arkansas is moving to the NBDL which is affiliated with the NBA. No word as to what will happen to the Arkansas players as a result of the move.

March 28, 2005

Hopefully Shawnson can get into the NBDL as Stern tries to make it a true minor league. Playing well in the NBDL would be his best chance of making a NBA roster.

greenjoe · April 4, 2005

If Shawnson were to make it to the NBA, do you think he would list his college as NT ? He was only here part of one season and came here from LSU (I think).

I'd love to see "North Texas" next to a name in a NBA program.

GO MEAN GREEN

stebo · April 5, 2005

I would say "yes" to that - IF he lists a college at all. He was thrown out of the other two schools he went to but spent the last two years on the NT campus on ship (even though he only played in 14 games after he became eligible for the second half of the season last year) - actually he spent about a year and a half ON CAMPUS because as soon as basketball season was over last year; he dropped all of his classes and started trying our for minor league teams.

So I would say with Sho-Jo, it could go one of two ways - he will either list North Texas (out of respect for JJ) or list his high school. I don't think he really fell in love with NT or else he would have finished up his degree in Denton. Also, it is kind of a "fad" to list your high school now other than you college - I noticed a lot of kids coming out of college are listing their "high school" or "hometown" as where they are from rather then their college these days. It is a new fad but one that ShoJo would probably love to get caught up in. Hopefully he will list NT if he ever gets a shot at the big time but I won't be holding my breath for that. We are talking about a GREAT player - but a TERRIBLE student.

Edited April 5, 2005 by stebo