By Patrick Hayes

It’s hard to be a NBA fan and not be highly entertained by Flint native JaVale McGee. But Eddie Matz of ESPN The Magazine has an excellent profile on McGee that shows that he’s perhaps maturing as a player in Denver. The whole thing is worth a read, but this passage really stuck out:

So there was McGee, toeing the stripe at 10 p.m., two weeks before vet camp was scheduled to start. It was such an unexpected sight that (Nuggets general manager Masai) Ujiri, who’d left the building earlier but returned to grab something he forgot, whipped out his iPhone and snapped a photo. Then he sent it to team president Josh Kroenke. There was no message attached, but there didn’t need to be. The picture said it all. Finally … JaVale McGee gets it.

Firstly, I can second Matz’s insinuations that McGee is an … uh … difficult interview. He’s really guarded in his answers, isn’t really interested and it’s frankly hard to get any kind of useful quote out of him, which is weird because he genuinely seems like a really interesting guy.

And secondly, if McGee is able to combine some basketball savvy with his immense athleticism this season, he’ll quickly become one of the top big men in the game.

Subscribe to the BallinMichigan RSS feed, like BallinMichigan on Facebook and follow@BallinMichigan on Twitter.