IS LEARNING THE PRINCETON OFFENSE
The Sixers selected UCLA's Jrue Holiday tonight with the 17th pick in the NBA draft.
Holiday is a 6-3, 180-pound freshman who played out of position at UCLA last season. Darren Collison was the Bruins' point guard and Holiday played shooting guard. His future is at the point. He was named to the All-Pac 10 freshman team. He averaged 8.5 points, 3.8 rebounds, 3.7 assists, 1.6 steals and 0.5 blocks in 27.1 minutes per game.
Hoilday was the 2008 Gatorade High School Player of the Year. He played high school ball at Campbell Hall High, in California. According to NBA.com, he collects shoes as a hobby.
He is the first UCLA player ever drafted by the Sixers.
Phil Jasner joined the staff of the Daily News in 1972. He has covered the 76ers and the NBA on a full-time basis since 1981. He won the 2004 Curt Gowdy Media Award, presented by the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame for outstanding contributions to the sport during his career; he was a finalist for the award in 2001, when he also received a lifetime achievement award from the Professional Basketball Writers Association during the NBA Finals. He is a past president of the Professional Basketball Writers Association and the Philadelphia College Basketball Writers Association. Along the way, he has covered high school sports, the Big 5, the Eagles and the NFL, the World Football League, the North American Soccer League and what was then the Major Indoor Soccer League. He is a proud graduate of Temple University, and spent his early professional days at the Pottstown (Pa.) Mercury, Montgomery Newspapers (Fort Washington, Pa.), the Norristown (Pa.) Times-Herald and the Trentonian.
Bob Cooney has been at the Daily News for almost 20 years, working in the sports department the past 12 years. This is his first season on the Sixers beat. He has covered just about everything, but mostly college basketball, where he has been the La Salle beat writer for the past six seasons.
