Johnny Carver was born into a basketball family. His father and his older brother both played division 1 basketball. So naturally Johnny would follow in their footsteps. He played all throughout high school but in his senior year something changed. When playing basketball Johnny would struggle with stamina and often felt fatigued. He wouldn't be able to exert the same amount of energy that other players would; he later found out he suffered from a severe muscle disease called ulcerative colitis which ended his basketball career.
Johnny was determined to stay connected to the game he loved and had a deep passion for. He stayed close to the game by covering basketball for the high school newspaper. This lead to him and his brother writing a book where they developed an algorithm in ranking the greatest NBA players of all time. Hours and hours, months and months of work lead to them finding the correct and most efficient way to rank them using 19 different statistical and analytical categories.
The book, Ranketology, was edited by his grandfather who was an author of two books in the 1980's. It's always a great resource to have when you're grandfather is a published author. During the process of completing the book, Johnny was able to email Dallas Maverick's owner Mark Cuban. He gave Johnny great advice on how to self publish the book in order to keep full control of the book and profits.
Johnny is a freshman at Sam M. Walton College of Business. Here he has really found both himself and a mentor in the assistant director Renee Clay. It's always a blessing when you find someone to guide you through your journey. Johnny has since sent his book and resume out to a few NBA teams in hopes of landing a job in the Analytics department, which is a definite possibility.
NBA legend, former Boston Celtic and now President of the Indiana Pacers basketball operations, Larry Bird, loved the booked and set up a meeting between Johnny and the Pacers organization. Other NBA teams have also reached out to him like the Clippers, Spurs and Thunder.
My personal preference is that Johnny can land a position with my favorite team, the Lakers. We all know they could use help from a great basketball mind like Johnny Carver's. His book is quickly catching the eye of NBA executives and basketball lovers everywhere. Ranketology is available for purchase on Amazon and soon to be in Barnes and Nobles book stores. Best of luck to Johnny from me, #BlueCollarSports and page2sports.com.
No comments:
Post a Comment