Wayne Selden’s Top Highlights of His Young NBADL Career

Iowa Energy wing Wayne Selden would be hard-pressed to improve upon his 5 game highlight reel to start his professional career as a NBADL rookie. Whether by dishing slick assists, powering home fastbreak slams, or tacking up his now infamous poster over Fort Wayne’s Rakeem Christmas, Selden has certainly not played quietly. But for the hearing impaired, here are some of Selden’s more delightful highlights of the young 2016-17 NBADL season.

Highlight numero uno above has Selden dampening the day of the Grand Rapid Drive roster with a no-look pass in transition. Selden’s catalyzing steal gave the Energy a not-so-difficult 4-on-2 possession to complete. However, Selden is bright enough to know that, unless you are the Warriors or you secretly slid the 2K shooting sliders all the way up, an easy layup by stellar rim finisher Matt Costello is a better option than an above-the-break three. Selden does well to move urgently enough to take advantage of the fractured Drive defense yet calmly enough to not tip his hand of making it known Costello is his primary option. A pass performed with ease but a play missed by too many pro ballhandlers to count.

Highlight number two has Selden getting a bit more Sweet Georgia Brown with the ball on his way to another assist in transition against Delaware. Selden 86’d the 87ers with a perfectly timed bounced pass wrapped around his own back to a streaking Perry Jones III for one of Selden’s seven assists from the game. Again, the ease and calm Selden displayed during the possession is to be admired. Not even a momentary pause to his dribble before he bounced the rock to Jones.

This third highlight will be the last Selden pass shown here, but serves to prove Selden can throw dimes in halfcourt possessions too. First of all, kudos to JaKarr Sampson for a well-timed off-ball cut under the rim. Off-ball movement needs love too. But Selden again sets up his pass extremely well by driving with patience instead of careening chaos. Selden could’ve easily driven harder for the contested layup and completely clog up the area Sampson was cutting into. But Selden upholds the tenet of turning decent scoring chances into great scoring chances and another assist made to look easy comes as a result. Admittedly, the no-look gesture Selden made after the pass was a bit necessary though. But you can stunt how you want when you are balling.

A great pass is always appreciated by the basketball fetishists of the world, but nothing beats a good dunk. Luckily, Selden has supplied us with a couple of those too. Again, the ease at which Selden leaps from well outside the paint for the alley-oop should be appreciated. A Wade-to-LeBron-esque alley-oop slam if you will (sorry for reopening the memories, Heat fans). Selden isn’t the quickest athlete around but jumping isn’t an issue for him.

And to really prove jumping isn’t an issue for him, of course, the ultimate bow to the gift of highlights has to be Selden canceling Christmas in Fort Wayne. Selden’s grinchy self gave poor Rakeem a moment to forget by completely disregarding Christmas’s attempt to bother Selden’s rampage to the rim. In fact, Christmas’s hustle efforts may have persuaded Selden to rise even higher for the dunk than he intended. As if Selden went out of his way to ether Christmas’s soul more painfully. Rakeem may take consolation in the Mad Ants squeaking out a 95-94 victory by the end of the game. However, it seems doubtful it will console much. Cruel world.