The Newble Era

With the OC's Shane Battier (Birmingham Detroit Country Day/Duke) about to get his feet wet in the 2012 NBA Finals with the Miami Heat this week, Burney has decided to take a look back at the last OC HOOP HOUND to suit up in the NBA Finals.

I'm taking about none other than the Southfield Bluejays very own Ira Newble.

Graduating from Southfield High School in 1993, this unheralded 6-foot-7 SIR-GRIND-A-LOT played two years of JUCO ball before finding his way to the D1 level with Miami (OH) for his junior and senior seasons in the '96 and '97 campaigns respectively.

As a senior, he averaged 11 points and 7.5 rebounds a night, earning him a slot on the All-MAC honorable mention team, on a Red Hawks squad that won a league title and competed in the The Big Dance aka the NCAA Tournament.

Just like when he was coming out of high school and nobody gave him much of a chance to succeed in college, the NBA scouts ignored Newble after he graduated from Miami (OH), forcing him to prove himself for three years on the minor league hoop circuit before finally landing with the San Antonio Spurs in 2000 and embarking on a solid 8-year career in THE SHOW.

Playing with five different franchises (SA Spurs, ATL Hawks, LA Lakers, Cleveland Cavs, Seattle Sonics), he participated in two NBA Finals, first with Cleveland in '07 and then again in '08 with the Lakers.

Newble averaged 5 points and 3 rebounds a night in his career in the NBA.

He's currently an assistant coach in the NBA's D-League with the Canton Charge, a minor league affiliate of the Cleveland Cavaliers.

Battier and Newble, along with B.J. Armstrong (Birmingham Brother Rice) and Walker D. Russell (Pontiac Central), are the only former Oakland County cagers to play in the NBA Finals. Armstrong won three straights World Championships with the Chicago Bulls in the early 1990s and Russell played on the 1988 Detroit Pistons that lost in 7 games to the L.A. Lakers in an epic Finals clash.