Fort Smith Northside boys basketball coach Eric Burnett said he was getting angrier by the minute, not by an official's call during a game but by what he was hearing on TV during the NBA draft.
"I was getting upset because they kept saying this kid is the best shooter in the NBA draft or that kid is the best shooter in the NBA draft, and I knew Isaiah Joe is the best shooter in the NBA draft," Burnett said.
The Philadelphia 76ers also think highly of Joe and they selected the former Fort Smith Northside and Arkansas sharp-shooter with the 49th pick in the second round.
"Isaiah deserves this," Burnett said. "There's going to be a lot of 76ers fans in Fort Smith."
I remember clearly watching Isaiah Joe and coach Burnett walk into the auxiliary gym at Springdale High School for a photo shoot in March, 2018. Joe was our Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette Division I Boys Player of the Year and he was very patient while our photographer, Charlie Kaijo, took several pictures of him. I used the opportunity to interview Burnett, who teared up when I asked about Joe and the impact he made on the program at Northside High School.
"I feel blessed to have coached Isaiah, who's meant a lot to the city of Fort Smith and Northside High School," Burnett said at the time. "Not only is Isaiah a great talent, he's a great kid, the kind of player every coach wants on his team. He's the whole package. Arkansas basketball fans are going to love him."
Arkansas fans did love him, for two years at least, before Joe decided to enter his name in the NBA draft and take the chance some team would select him. It happened last Wednesday night when Philadelphia selected him with the 49th pick.
Joe is the latest in a long list of athletes who emerged from the playgrounds of Fort Smith to find success in college and even in the pros. That list includes Jim King, who played 10 years in the NBA beginning in 1963 with four teams, including the Los Angeles Lakers, where he was teammates with Jerry West and Elgin Baylor, both Hall of Fame players.
Joe wore No. 10 at Northside like his idol, Ron Brewer, Sr., who played eight years in the NBA and scored 39, 40 and 44 points in consecutive games for San Antonio in 1981 while filling in for George Gervin, a Hall of Fame player better know as 'The Ice Man." Like Brewer, Joe starred at Arkansas before turning pro.
"Definitely, growing up in Fort Smith, I grew up an Arkansas Razorbacks fan," said Joe, who led the Grizzlies to two state championships. "Ron Brewer, Sr., he'd come up there to multiple practices and things like that, just giving tips."
Joe made an easy transition from Northside to Arkansas, where he averaged 13.9 points as a freshman. Joe was even better his sophomore year, when he averaged 16.9 points and led the SEC in 3-point field goals. Joe missed five games after having surgery on his right knee and the Razorbacks lost all of them.
I was looking forward to watching Joe reunite this season at Arkansas with freshman Jaylin Williams, his former teammate at Northside. But it is certainly understandable why Joe eventually decided to turn pro after initially announcing he would return to Arkansas for his junior year.
Covid-19 changes everything, folks. Everything.
So, while Joe begins his NBA career in "The City of Brotherly" he'll be comforted in knowing he is beloved back home in the state of Arkansas and, in particular, Fort Smith, where his portrait will eventually be placed in the Northside Hall of Fame room with other standouts from the state's premier basketball program.
That'll be another great day, as coach Burnett likes to say, to be a Northside Grizzly.
Rick Fires can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @NWARick.