*Video* Steve Taylor, Kendrick Nunn & Simeon Coach Robert Smith

I had a chance to take in a Simeon game down in Chicago earlier this month, and came away more than impressed. I have seen some great high school teams in my time, and this is without question, the best high school team I have seen, beating out '10-'11 De LaSalle(Chicago) and the '04-'05 Dunwoody(Atlanta) teams.

Just to set things straight, in the game I watched Simeon man handled Harlan, who I was told one source, "Harlan is a good team, don't judge them by watching Simeon, Simeon is like a minor league team". I went in really wanting to get a feel for Simeon's guards, but in a game like this, it is really hard to get a read on the guards as the pretty much come down court, toss it to Parker or Taylor and they finish. No matter where Parker is when he gets the ball, no matter who is in the way, he will drive and dunk. He has size, length, athleticism, a great feel for the ball, a pretty good handle. This may seem like an odd comment, but it almost looked is if the high school court was too small for Parker & Taylor.

Steve Taylor: The Marquette recruit was impressive. He has the size to be a true force for Marquette. I do feel the 6'8 reports are accurate, as Taylor appeared to be in the 6'7 & 6'8 range. He has a long body, but has filled out as he does have muscle. He moves very well up and down court. Not mechanical at all, runs and changes direction with a very fluid motion, and he does it all in a way that looks effortless. Athletically it is there. A quick step, solid vertical and very active defensively and on the boards. He plays very well with his back to the basket, able to make move on his defender to both the right and left.

In the game I watched, Taylor was 7-11 from the field, 2-5 from 3pt, 4-4 from the line and also had 6 blocked shots

Kendrick Nunn: Kendrick Nunn has a nice body, thick. Looking at Nunn & Taylor, I don't know if Simeon has a strength and conditioning program, but these kids are not skinny, they are put together. Like most guards, Nunn is very athletic, but he is also what I would describe as a powerful guard. He can get to the hole and bounce off contact as it does not throw him off. There was one play in particular where he was at the three line when Taylor took a 6 foot turn around J, and Nunn was called for offensive goal-tending as he snapped the rim back while the ball was still on it. He got there and got up in quick fashion.

As I mentioned earlier, I really want to get a great feel for his skills, but he was not challenged a great deal in this game. From what I was able to see, he does have a very good handle on the dribble, plays in your face defense and does not let up. He has a pretty solid outside shot, and showed that he can hit the 3 pt shot off the dribble or with the spot up shot. My overall analysis of him as far as Marquette goes - he really could be a special player, someone who can certainly play both guard spots. Could he really zero in and become a true point guard? I would like to think so, but would need to see more of him.

All in all I was impressed with both of these guys, not only because of the skills they showed, but also because of the way they played and handled themselves. It is obvious that they are team leaders as their teammates do respond to them. In warm-ups, in timeouts, you could tell just by looking at them that they were guys the others looked up to. Both are also very unselfish. One example of this was at one point when Taylor checked out of the game. Simeon has what i would call a 'full bench'. Taylor checks out, and any player with his status, "senior-star player", could tell guys to move down because they need to sit near the coach. Taylor came down to the end of the bench and squeezed in between what appeared to be two managers. During the next time out, he grabbed the water and brought it to the huddle. The guy seems to remain very humble.

I was able to get some quick comments from them after the game, excuse the choppy editing, as I am a bit rusty....