The Lawrence Journal-World’s Ryan Wood catches up with former KU standouts Aaron Miles and Keith Langford, both currently toiling for the Fort Worth Flyers of the NBDL.
The plot seems endearing on the surface: teammates and friends for four years at Kansas University, reunited professionally on the first-place team in the National Basketball Association Developmental League.
œEverybody makes it seem like it™s a hunky-dory story, Langford (above) says. œBut this is a league that nobody wants to be in.
This also is a severe culture shock for Miles and Langford, two four-year standouts at tradition-rich KU who earned fame and adoration from a fan base that couldn™t get enough.
Miles started in two Final Fours, in domes that could hold every resident of a two-high-school city. Langford likely would™ve been the 2003 Final Four MVP, had KU beaten Syracuse in the championship game that year.
Miles played half a season for the NBA™s Golden State Warriors before being released in January. Now he here trying to remember the sweet taste of the NBA for motivation, yet also trying to forget about it so his present situation doesn™t eat him up.
œLook at it, Miles said. œWe practice at a high school right now. Golden State, you had your own facility. You traveled charter planes to games, down here you travel charter buses. Up there you stay in a Trump Tower hotel by yourself, down here you™re doubling up in the Ramada Inn.
Langford is on a œteam now ” but it™s the deeper meaning of the word that just doesn™t make its way to the minor-league circuit.
œIt™s a bunch of guys going for each other™s head day in and day out, Langford said of the NBDL. œOn the same team and on other teams.
It’s a bunch of guys going for each other’s head day in and day out,†Langford said of the NBDL.
i love the juxtaposition of this right above the entry on todd bertuzzi.
At least they can hold each other as they cry themselves to sleep every night.