Former Coastal Carolina standouts Jack Leasure and Joseph Harris played only eight games with the South Carolina Warriors, but as both leave to pursue international opportunities coach Chris Beard feels the players have impacted the American Basketball Association expansion team beyond their statistical contributions on the court.
Leasure, the Warriors’ leading scorer at 23 points per game, is headed to New Zealand to return to the team he’s spent the past two seasons with, and Harris has signed a short-term contract with a team in Uruguay.
They are the first players to leave the Warriors for international contracts, and Beard says that speaks to the exposure and experience provided by playing in the ABA.
“The ABA is minor league professional basketball, and our vision and goal for this team from Day 1 is to get the best players we can, to get a great team and try to win a championship,” Beard said. “No. 2, [it’s] to try to help each individual player try to improve their situation. … It’s just like Triple-A baseball, it’s just like Double-A baseball. When a guy moves up to the majors, it’s a success. And that’s how we view this deal.”
Leasure and Harris, who averaged 19 points and led the team with 9.5 rebounds per game, helped the upstart Warriors to an 8-0 record and the No. 2 position in the ABA’s national power rankings.
Leasure, who led New Zealand’s National Basketball League in scoring last season, intended to finish out the Warriors’ season before rejoining the Taranaki Mountain Airs, but he said with the upcoming Olympic Games, the league’s season was moved up two months.
He said their season begins March 1, but he will head over there earlier for preseason training, and after talking with Beard, they agreed now was the right time for him to part ways with the Warriors.
“I had a great time,” Leasure said of his ABA experience. “I think it was probably the best team talent-wise I’ve ever been on, and even though we played some teams where we were winning by a lot, I feel like practices were so competitive every day and coach Beard just pushed everybody that I feel like I got more out of that in two months than I did with a lot of teams in a full season.”
In his time with the Warriors, Leasure flashed that potent perimeter shooting touch familiar to his days as a CCU Chanticleer, shooting 47 percent from 3-point range.
He said he’d be open to returning to the team next season.
“I’ve coached a lot of good players in my coaching career, and I’ve never coached a shooter better than Jack,” said Beard, who spent the last 10 years as an assistant coach at Texas Tech. “But it’s not just about shooting with Jack. He’s also a great teammate, he’s a leader, [has] high character. He does a lot more for a team than shooting a basketball. … Jack always has a place here. He’ll always have the opportunity to come back and play for our team.”
Harris, meanwhile, was offered a contract for the final seven games of the season in Uruguay and left Monday to join the team, Beard said. It’s possible he could return later in the season for the Warriors, or showcase himself well enough to catch on with another professional team in South America or elsewhere.
“We’re proud our opportunity was able to give them an opportunity,” Beard said. “Before this summer, Jo was pursuing professional basketball opportunities. After just six weeks playing for us, he’s got an opportunity that he didn’t have before. It speaks volumes of our organization. It speaks volumes of what we’ve been able to accomplish in a short time.”
Beard also revealed the team will be without another key contributor in John Fowler for at least the next 30 days as he recovers from a meniscus strain.
That means the roster will be a little thinner this week as the Warriors return to action for games Wednesday night and Sunday at the Carolina Forest Recreation Center, but he expects the team will add a free agent early next week to help fill the void.
“These guys are doubling, tripling, quadrupling their money,” Beard said of Leasure and Harris. “We’ll add new players that are looking for the same opportunity. That’s what this is all about. This is a good thing that is happening.”
E-Mail
Print
The Sun News Terms & Conditions and Commenting Policies can be reviewed here.