Oakland product Kiwi Gardner tore up high school competition at Manteca High and Westwind Academy — where he averaged 23.7 points, 7 assists, 4 steals and 4 rebounds a game as a senior at the latter — before spending his freshman season at Providence last year. Few people could track down where the point guard, listed at 5-10 but Yay Area’s Finest calls 5-7, was going to land this summer after leaving the Friars. Spoiler alert: There hasn’t been a clear-cut answer. We do, however, know where and how he was spending his summer: by tearing apart competition in the 33-year-old San Francisco Pro-Am, where he was league MVP.
If you stopped watching after the move at 51 seconds alone I wouldn’t begrudge you. Stay with it, though, because there are even better pull-ups and misdirection moves to come on the tape. He averaged 33.7 points a game on 47 percent shooting according to league stats, to take MVP, an honor won before by Leon Powe (2005) and Landry Fields (2009). Tyreke Evans also played in the SF league this summer but Gardner didn’t pale next to the former NBA Rookie of the Year.
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