Randy passed yesterday
By JIM BAKER, Buffalo Courier- Express
Randy who? That was the cry throughout the NBA this early season as fans who thought they knew the players perused the box scores and kept finding double figure point production from someone in Buffalo named Randy Smith.
Of course, Western New Yorkers have known for more than four years not only who but how great an athlete Randy Smith is, but it was really amusing to watch the rest of the NBA discover him.
The best came in Atlanta Nov. 5. Just before the Braves took the floor to play the Hawks, an Atlanta writer approached me and offered the classic line: “Just who is this Randy Smith, anyway?”
About two hours later, Randy had connected on 15 of 21 shots, scored a pro peak 35 points and saved eight for overtime which keyed a thrilling 122- 117 Braves’ triumph. The Atlanta writer, whose eyeballs were bulging by this time, spent the next hour scrolling rave reviews about Buffalo’s “other Smith”.
That writers and fans in the 16 other NBA cities would not know Randy isn’t strange. After all, the Braves waited until the seventh round of the March draft to select him and seventh round choices hardly ever survive the final roster cuts.
To illustrate what kind of company Randy had in that seventh round, consider these choices of other clubs, such luminaries as Tom Bush, Gene Knolle, Mike Jordon, John Duncan, Eric Hill, Dennis Hogg, Skip Young, Steve Kelly, Curtis Ford, Gene Gathers, Ralph Brateris, Danny Davis, and Gene Phillips.
Of that group, only Randy made the NBA grade. And he not only made the Braves’ roster, but as this is written he is averaging 13 points per game, has enjoyed a good many starting roles as a small forward and spent a time among the NBA’s top 10 in field goal percentage.
Randy came to the Braves with All- America soccer credentials and having realized tremendous track feats as well in a star studded career at Buffalo State, where he quickly established himself as the greatest athlete in that school’s history.
As a high school senior at Bellport, Long Island, Randy won the New York State Intersectional high- jumping title with a record leap in a meet held, of all places, at Buffalo State. That was the start of his solid relationship with the Elmwood Avenue school and with the athletic staff there headed by Howie MacAdam, who was his basketball coach for all but his senior season, when Don O’Brien took over.
At State. Randy sank 1,712 points in four years, easily a school mark. He paced the Bengals to the NCAA small- college regionals twice and had varsity- season point averages of 18.4, 25.6, and 23.5.
Still, Randy was only the 104th player drafted by NBA teams last March. The Braves selected ahead of him, in addition to Elmore Smith and Fred Hilton, Southwestern State’s Amos Thomas, Spencer Haywood (Who?), Boston College’s Jim O’Brien, Duquesne’s Garry Nelson, and Glen Summors, who returned to Gannon College.
Randy, who has no qualms about admitting that “playing pro basketball means everything to me”, says he feels the fact that his senior season at State wasn’t as productive as the previous one had a lot to do with his late position in the draft. “Still, I was very surprised,” he says, “and the ABA never drafted me at all, although they did when I was a junior.”
Randy was not only taken late in the draft, but he had a four- month waiting period until he finally signed a Braves’ contract at the club’s Darien Lake rookie camp in July. A month earlier, he participated in the Indiana Pacers’ rookie camp and was among six whom the ABA club invited back from the group of 30 who played there.
Randy made his mark right away in Braves’ camp, with his tremendous play
against Fred Hilton, the highly touted rookie guard from Grambling. Their battle was a camp highlight. “I played fairly aggressive defense against Fred,” recalls Randy in an understatement. “But I think what really started me going was after I signed (making Randy and attorney Mike Broderick most happy fellows) when I started
playing in preseason games, particularly those with Cleveland. I started going well without the ball then.”
The big rap against Randy’s chances of making it as a pro was his jump shot. The “experts” said he couldn’t hit it with sufficient consistency. But Randy reveals how he changed his shot.
“I’d really rather play guard because that’s where I think my future is with my height (6-3),” Randy says. “In my junior year (as a forward) I had confidence in my jump shot, but in my senior year (playing much of the time at guard) I lost that for some reason.
“The success of the jump shot is all in the release,” he says. “About three weeks before I went to the Indiana camp, I changed my release entirely. “I found I was shooting it at the peak of my jump and even on the way down, and now I release it on the way up. It gives better arch to the shot.”
Randy says staying in shape is the major factor toward adjusting to the tough 82- game NBA season in which you play four and sometimes five games in a week from the one or two- game week he had at State.
Who among the NBA stars he has played opposite thus far have impressed him most? “John Havlicek for his ability to go without the ball and his great shooting while on the move, Bill Bradley for his intelligent play (Randy knows he’s a Princeton graduate and Rhodes scholar), JoJo White, Geoff Petrie and Norm Van Lier for his tenacious defense.
Randy’s sense of humor has made him a fast favorite among his Braves teammates.
He and trainer Jerry McCann will break up a packed airplane when McCann yells while in flight: “Randy, where is you?” The high pitched voice comes from the back of the plane: “Here I is.”
Once on a trip, Cornell Warner called to Randy: “Hey rookie.” Randy responded: “Rookie sensation, that’s what the paper says.” “A good description of Randy is that he is consistently unaffected- by anything,” McCann says. “And he can really turn on a crowd, he’s an electrifying player.” McCann undoubtedly had Randy’s eye- popping reverse dunk shot in mind among other things.
How unbothered is Randy about what goes on around him? In a preseason game with Detroit, then coach Dolph Schayes told Randy to go in and cover Jimmy Walker. Randy approached the scorer’s table and said nonchalantly, “Smith for Walker,” causing the personnel there to scratch their heads in bewilderment.
Then in the same game, Schayes yelled as the clock showed just 26 seconds left in the half: “One shot.” Randy, thinking Dolph was beckoning him to shoot, put one up from three- quarter court, leaving Schayes speechless.
On the serious side, Coach John McCarthy echoes the sentiment of all the Braves’ brass toward Randy. “He’s a fantastic athalete,” beams Irish John. “I knew all along he had the talent, it was just a matter of bringing it out.”
Yes, the “experts” were wrong on Randy Smith. Those who thought aloud that the
kid with the kangaroo leap from Buffalo State just couldn’t make it now must admit that the NBA’s 104th draft choice was a prize catch.
Who’s Randy Smith? They’re not asking that question anymore.
