Once a year, we celebrate NBA Unsung Player Day, an invention of Don at With Malice. On this day, we pontificate and deliberate over some of the NBA’s greatest players that have little impact on the court, but who have impact on their teams and who ultimately deserve more playing time down the track — or at least that’s how I read it. You can read the full preamble and list of constantly updating list of Unsung Player Day nominees at With Malice.
His game has a certain old-school toughness to it; a trait which is relatively unique in today’s NBA. He is the perfect type of player to have on your bench, both for his enthusiastic play when he gets minutes and for his ability to bond team mates. It is clearly apparent that Jeff Pendergraph is a genuine young man — one who has immediately gravitated the entire Portland Trail Blazers’ team (right through to the grizzled veterans) to himself.
He has taken the reigns as the guy to lead the Blazers in their pre-game ritualistic huddle-dance. And nobody is arguing with him about it. Meanwhile, he may only be averaging 2.1ppg and 2.5rpg in 9.9mpg across 38 games, in this his injury-shortened rookie season. Despite this, the entire team respects him. He is that type of man who commands respect and attention. Respect earned through his personality as a legitimate, honest man.
As a rookie, he has even been thrown into the fire as a starter on four occasions this season. On one such occasion he even managed to snare 14 rebounds, block two shots and score eight points in 25 minutes — not bad for a guy in his fifth ever NBA game. He has proven that if you put him on the court, he will play hard every single minute — how can you not like that?
We will see a lot more of Jeff Pendergraph in the NBA in years to come. Time constraints restrict me from writing all that I would like to on the topic right now (that big house move and all), but certainly, I recommend that you check out both of these articles for a clearer, more detailed picture of the 6’9″ man wearing number 31 for the Blazers:
- Jason Quick (The Oregonian): “The Crazy Jeff Pendergraph: The Blazers’ man in the middle before, and during the game”
- Wendell Maxey (The Portland Sentinel): “For Blazers rookie Pendergraph, friendship hits close to home”
And don’t forget to follow the other Unsung Player Day nominees at With Malice.
