Former Razorbacks Joe Johnson and Jannero Pargo finished near the top of the NBA.com’s Top 10 Crossovers of 2012.
The good friends and one-time teammates at Arkansas and with the Atlanta Hawks find themselves together again, this time for better (in Johnson’s case) and worse (in Pargo’s).
Johnson’s play last month against Boston’s Paul Pierce was selected for the top spot, and will likely go down as the signature highlight of his career. It’s unlike any crossover before it, like a cobra playing with mongoose on a Twister board.
Pargo shows up at #3, and unfortunately for the 10-year NBA veteran he doesn’t look very good. Orlando’s Jameer Nelson puts Pargo on skates and sends him tumbling nearly out of the frame before rising for a three-pointer (small consolation for the family: Pargo’s brother Jeremy is on the good side of things in clip #4).
I’m sure if Johnson finds out about these rankings, he’ll give Jannero some good-natured ribbing about it.
I doubt Pargo will mind. He seemed like a cool, laid-back cat when I met him last summer at the Clinton Presidential Center before the Hoop Jams fundraiser tournament in Little Rock.
Afterward, I visited Johnson in his high-rise downtown Little Rock apartment to interview him for this SLAM article. I wasn’t too surprised when I found Pargo, along with a couple other of Johnson’s friends, playing NBA Live on Playstation 3. What surprised me, as I recall, is that Pargo was playing as the Atlanta Hawks against the Chicago Bulls, but he didn’t choose to play as himself but instead as Joe Johnson.
Which, I suppose, is a crossover of the metaphysical sort.
