Our Second Athlete: Jesus Shuttlesworth

Jesus Shuttlesworth was played by Ray Allen in the movie "He Got Game". Ray Allen was actually nominated for best breakthrough performance with his roll in this movie. Basically Jesus is the #1 recruit in the country and his father is removed from jail on parole to persuade him to go to a politician's school. Basically his character has all the game of Ray Allen and maybe a little extra for hollywood. In college he was a first team all-american and Big East player of the year in the 95-96 season, and has gone on to have a hall of fame NBA career. Now, could Jesus live up to this height, nobody knows, but he most certainly was a special player, hell Spike Lee wanted him as real as possible so he grabbed him coming out of his second year in the league. I will try and rank him as true to his movie personal as possible, but his real life career may sneak in a bit because he is one of my faves ever and probably the greatest shooter in NBA history. I will use NBADraft.net's scale of rating NBA prospects, its quite a comprehensive breakdown and it will give many a chance to really break down the player, they are out of a 1-10 scale FYI

Athleticism: 8 Great athlete with good quickness and solid vertical, but not to the extreme levels of players like Ty Thomas, Lebron, Josh Smith and so on. He has to gather his body to reach rim level unlike players like Ty Thomas who seem to be eye-level with the rim in half a second. His athleticism allows him to take players off the dribble and also doesn't let defenders key on his stellar jump shot
Size: 9 For a shooting guard he has ideal size, 6-6 210 is perfect for the league this day and he doesn't sacrifice any athletic ability either.
Defense: 6 He can work on this, got schooled a few times by a 50 YO Denzel. With effort he can be a force on the defensive end with his natural gifts
Strength: 7 His body looks strong and it gives him the ability make plays in heavy traffic, but seeing him get pushed around by an old man is a little nerve racking.
Quickness: 8 Very quick, not to the level of an Iverson or even a Maggette, but quick enough to take players off the dribble and finish strong at the rack.
Leadership: 6.5 Didn't have to show much leadership, though it isn't his style, his leadership comes from taking his team and crushing the opponent and involving others when needed. Not a vocal leader, but his play and his will to win sets examples
Jump Shot: 10 Just watch his real life counterpart
NBA Ready: 8 Could use a year at Tech U
Ball Handling: 6 Not a point guard but his handle is ok, tends to carry the ball a bit and doesn't assert possession with ball handling dribbling high up and away from his body
Potential: 10 Has endless upside with his shooting capabilities, knowledge of the game and athletic talent
Passing: 7 Does he even need to pass? Not at the high school level, but in the pros he will, he can thread the needle at times but no one will ever confuse him as Jason Kidd
Intangibles: 7 His work ethic coupled with his skill set has taken him to the top, and it wont stop there
Rebounding: 8 (For Position) He has great in air body control and good strength to hold position in the paint, even with the big boys, double doubles will happen on a more than regular basis for an off guard

Jesus has the potential to be one of the best, has all the skills and athletic ability to be on a special, Hall of Fame level.

Now, when creating him in a game such as NBA 2k10 and so on, one must be a bit leery to go right ahead and double up Ray Allen. Though his skills are on the same level as Spike Lee gave him specific instructions to play Ray's game, he also Hollywoodized it a bit adding a bit more of an above the rim playing style that Ray really doesn't play all that often, it also showed him in more of a slasher roll than his current NBA roll of perimeter play and taking the lane only when given. I would take Ray Allen's skills and adjust them more towards a Manu Ginobilli with a more efficient jump shot.

A lil' youtube action
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vI7A3ILE6Ks&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fvideo.google.com%2Fvideosearch%3Fq%3Dray%2Ballen%2Bcollege%2Bmix%26www_google_domain%3Dwww.google.com%26hl%3Den%26emb%3D0%26aq%3D0%26oq%3Dray%2Ballen%2Bcolle&feature=player_embedded#t=35

The First Athlete: Willie Beamen

Um DUHHHH!!!!
No matter what anyone says, he is the most revered, famous, popular and real life movie athlete ever that is not apart of a true story. He came right around when Mike Vick was still in college and we began to see the coming of something special, so Oliver Stone decided to take advantage of this and create a movie around the reality of NFL life (which has been heavily disputed by many profession football players, esp Mike Golic and Mark Schlereth).



But the man had more charisma than Clinton Portis, was insanely athletic for the position (remember he hurt his shoulder playing corner professionally, you cant play corner without being a special athlete), and had many tools that put him ahead of many. His biggest problem was his character; his lackluster effort, concentration and practice habits kept him as a fringe player with little hope of moving up due to his lack of size and accuracy.

Espn has 5 different traits they use to grade college QB prospects:
Game Management
Accuracy
Release
Arm Strength
Mobility
These are grades on a 1-5 scale, one being the highest grade possible

For Willie I have graded these attributes as such:

Game Management: 3
He is only a three because his leadership skills have been questioned and his ability to control the huddle and line of scrimmage have been put in question with his poor playbook memorization of the past still haunting him. Though he has become more of a student of the game as of recent, he still needs to prove that he can do this.

Accuracy: 3
Another one of his weaker points, he has occasionally missed an open target or he throws an errant interception, though these have dwindled as his experience grew and his knowledge of the offense grew. This actually could have been a result of poor knowledge of the offense and not knowing where his receivers were supposed to be, could easily be a 2 in this category.

Release: 1
He has a quick over the shoulder delivery with little to no sidearm action at all. He has a nice touch on his dumpoffs as well as his ability to throw through passing lanes given by the d-line. He needs this great ability due to his lack of size.

Arm Strength: 2
Has a strong arm, but not at the elite strength levels of players such as Jamarcus Russel, Jay Cutler or Matt Stafford, but it is strong enough to make all the throws at all the angles, there was video of him throwing a deep out to WR 83 Owens (hmmm) that was on a perfect frozen rope. Deep ball is solid and his touch on dumpoffs and fades is quite good.

Mobility: 1
One of the best if not the best at his position in the league at this. He has DB speed and athleticism at a QB, runs well out of the pocket and can throw well off the boot. He even was efficient enough at running that they ran the option, almost unheard of in the NFL, even college these days.

Production: 4
He was moderate in college but not good enough to over come a lack in size and give professional teams enough to take a flyer on him as a QB until it was a necessity for a team.

Height Weight Speed: 5, 3, 1
Only 5'9" weighed around 190 with very good bulk, built like a DB, he also ran a faster 40 than their all pro RB Julian Washington, this kid is fastttt

Durability: 3
There is an underlying, undisclosed throwing shoulder issue from his stint at QB, this could come to haunt him as his career goes along

Intangibles: was a 5 now creeping towards a 2
At first he didn't know the plays, then he takes credit for all the success, gets put in his place and now is man of the people, things don't add up, but if he stays on the positive track without blowing his top on his players again, he could be a leader, game changer, and a game winner

So here is the Criteria for madden for willie Beamen
Name Willie Beamen
Pos QB
OVR 84
Speed 88
Acc 88
Str 58
Agl 89
Awr 78
Sta 90
TGH 95
INJ 86
THP 88
THA 82
CAR 77

Maybe a few can be changed, but I would say this is pretty close, what do you think? I can always use feedback

Thanks,
Tom

And with that I leave you with this:




My Name is Willie

My Idea

When I was younger I spent countless hours importing/creating players from different sports movies to my favorite sports video games, Movies like Any Given Sunday, Varsity Blues, Blue Chips and so on. I wanted to see how athletes like Willie Beamen, Darnell Jefferson and Neon Bodeaux stand up against their professional and collegiate counterparts. Most of the fun was creating the players and the teams, but what was I supposed to base these on? There were really no scouting reports to think of (mostly because of how big of a waste of time this is) and the only game film we have are snipits of a 2 hour film, most of which isn't sports action. So what I plan on doing is creating these scouting reports for as many movie athletes as possible, as often as possible and hopefully we can build some steam and really continue to get the ball rolling on this for others

Thanks,
Tom