Tyreke. 20-5-5. WOW!

Early this morning, Tyreke Evans arguably became Chester’s most historic athlete ever. He joins the ranks of Oscar Robinson, Michael Jordan and LeBron James as the only other first year NBA players to average 20 points, 5 assists and 5 rebounds.

He needed 24 points and got 22 in the first half before Trevor Ariza of the Houston Rockets put the clamps on Tyreke holding him scoreless in the 3rd period. After a few more missed opportunities, coach Westphal benched Tyreke until about 8 mins left in the game. He was finally hacked and made the historic points from the foul line.

Thanks to Tyreke’s brother, Eric Pooh Evans, I’ve had a few opportunities to chat with Mr. History this past summer at Pooh’s FiDonce Player Development workouts here in Chester. Before he left town in September, I told Tyreke that I looked forward to seeing him play in the rookie game and hoped he’d stay healthy throughout the season. You never know what to expect from a rookie so I was trying to be conservatively optimistic.

No one could prepare me for the season Tyreke had. But his brother sure tried.

Pooh told me that Tyreke was going to be one of the greatest pros ever. He was made for the pro game. He was going to get better day by day by learning something from the great players he’d face throughout the year.

I shouldn’t have doubted Pooh, who also told me that Tyreke was going to be the forth pick in draft a week before the draft.

But I questioned Tyreke’s jump shot and foul shooting. Pooh may have embellished a bit when talking about Tyreke’s shot and agreed that he needed to shoot 80% from the foul line but I had no clue how good he was at everything else.

Even Kobe Bryant was quoted as saying that “Stephen Curry is a phenomenal shooter but Tyreke Evans is a grown ass man.”

Tyreke told me that he wasn’t going out there to win just 17 games as the team did last year. Well, although they should have won at least 10 more games than they did, they still only won about 25 games so he didn’t make a big difference in that category.

But the excitement he brought to Sacramento meant a lot to that town. He sold tickets and a lot of merchandise from his play on the court. I’m sure they’re glad to have him.

My favorite Tyreke moments was the Gilbert Arenas steal, the spin move on Ron Artest, the game winner over Kenvon Martin, the game winner around Andrew Bogut, the shot over the backboard, and the 35 point come back over Chicago.

Unfortunately, the dark cloud over Tyreke’s head around here will probably prevent folks from openly celebrating his historic accomplishment.

For me, I’m going to the refrigerator for a toast as soon as I hit send.