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Remember Troy Bell?



Jerry West brought him into the league with the highest praise in 2003. (Not fair to Mr. West to do this in hindsight, but at the time he said "We would have drafted Troy Bell at 13... This guy is going to be a terrific player here... Dwyane Wade is going to be a terrific player but we are very happy with what we got.")



He was injured a lot, and eventually cut, and has played a little in Europe. He seems like a good guy--I hope he catches on somewhere. He's sure hoping for a second chance with someone, and in the mean time, he has fallen in love with boxing. He started training a little on the side with a family friend, caught the bug, and his first amateur bout was last night.



Here's his trainer, Otis Gage, as quoted by Michael Vega of the Boston Globe.

``His first sparring session he did extremely well, for a kid who had never been in the ring and had never put the gloves on," Gage said. ``I kind of raised an eyebrow for a second there, like, `Hmm, he might have something there.' What impressed me more than anything, I would say, was in his second week of sparring.



``We've got a pretty talented kid here who's probably 168 pounds and can punch. He won his first eight amateur fights, six of them by knockout, and Troy proceeded to bust him up, so he does have some skills."

NBA teams love scrappers (did you see all the talk about Kyle Lowry?). I bet this boxing jag doesn't hurt Troy Bell's NBA chances one little bit.