by Adam Figman / @afigman
After the Goodman League team defeated the Drew League team by a score of 135-134 in Washington, DC on August 20, many were hoping to see if the results would be different had the game been played on the other side of the country. And word was a rematch in Los Angeles would indeed be taking place soon enough.
Then this past weekend, various outlets reported that the rematch between the DC-based Goodman League and the LA-based Drew League had been called off, a rumor that was confirmed when Drew League Commissioner Dino Smiley told ESPN he couldn’t secure something “concrete” from Goodman officials. But according to Goodman League Commish Miles Rawls, his guys were ready to go, and it was the Drew League that was unprepared to host his squad out west.
“Drew League told us last week they weren’t doing the game because they couldn’t get it together,” Rawls told SLAM in a phone interview. “We were waiting on that rematch. I don’t know what happened, but Dino told me we weren’t doing the game. [Then] I got a call from someone else in that camp that said they might come back here. So I don’t know what’s going on with the Drew League, but I had my whole squad. We were ready.”
Instead, the Goodman League team will be visiting Indianapolis during the weekend the rematch was initially planned for, when it’ll play against the Indy Pro Am team on Sunday, September 25—not the 24th, as has been reported—at Butler University. The Indy Pro Am squad will be led by Zach Randolph, Eric Gordon and George Hill.
“That’s why I scheduled the game with Indiana,” Rawls said. “[The Drew League] was talking about the 24th or the 25th, and then I talked to Dino Smiley, and he told me that the game was a no-go. He said he wasn’t able to make it happen.”
Kevin Durant and John Wall will be suiting up for Goodman against Indy Pro Am, as the two have multiple times this summer.
After the Goodman-Indy Pro Am contest, the Goodman team will then travel to NYC, where it’ll take on Rucker Park representatives at Fordham University on September 30. Rawls said there have also been discussions with a team out of Atlanta—which will include a group of Hawks, including Joe Johnson, Josh Smith and Jeff Teague—to play in DC on October 7, though the date hasn’t been officially confirmed yet.
In the meantime, Rawls is still hoping for a rematch with the Drew League, and he says his team will be ready if the opportunity does present itself.
“We were disappointed we didn’t get that rematch in LA, but we could make it happen,” he said. “We’ll come out there.”
